Abstract
Migration as a global, European and national phenomenon undoubtedly represents a privileged context where populism may be expressed. The management of migration flows involves reference to legal concepts which are traditionally related to populist trends: national security, border defence, national identity and culture. The assessment of the ‘constitutional sustainability’ of populist policies implemented within the Italian legal context is conducted in the chapter, as well as their compatibility with European standards and other national experiences. The trend to implement a populist narrative in particular is considered, intended as the will of the political majority to introduce both effective and ‘symbolic’ pieces of legislation able to convey a legal—but also cultural—message grounded on the rhetoric of the separation between ‘Us’ and the ‘Others’. The influence of populism over migration management is intended to be a key issue within which the traditional confrontation between the legality expressed by the political power and the legitimacy guaranteed at the constitutional level takes place. Therefore, the chapter aims to address the following question: What is the sustainable level of populist policies within a constitutional legal order?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Within this trend, it is necessary to recall the role played, according to the populist rhetoric, by the systematic call to the connection between uncontrolled immigration and risks for European societies linked to the terrorist threat. This link is often used in order to justify, and in a certain way impose, very restrictive migration policies based on dissuasion, control and, eventually, real contrast of the phenomenon as a whole. In this sense, the confusion between supposed different ‘types’ of migrations (see further below) favours the gradual but inexorable transition from the fight against terrorism also in the context of migration, to the struggle to irregular immigration up to the fight against immigration tout court (Castelli Gattinara 2017; Armillei 2017: 154).
- 2.
Ministry of Interior, Cruscotto statistico giornaliero (http://www.libertaciviliimmigrazione.dlci.interno.gov.it/it/documentazione/statistica/cruscotto-statistico-giornaliero. Last accessed: 13 October 2019).
- 3.
European Commission, ‘Integration of immigrants in the European Union’, Special Eurobarometer, 2018, no. 469.
- 4.
Istituto Cattaneo, Immigrazione in Italia: tra realtà e percezione, 2018 (https://www.cattaneo.org/2018/08/27/immigrazione-in-italia-tra-realta-e-percezione/). It links this error of perception not only to lack of information but also to the existence of deep-rooted prejudices against immigrants, which could bias voters’ perception.
- 5.
See infra. In contradiction with the populist will to reaffirm the centrality of the popular will betrayed by liberal and technocratic elites.
- 6.
Il Post, Gli immigrati e gli alberghi, 17 June 2015 (https://www.ilpost.it/2015/06/17/immigrati-alberghi-di-lusso-salvini/).
- 7.
According to Villa (2018): ‘it is important to note that although the Gentiloni government had asked NGOs in the summer of 2017 to either sign a “code of conduct” or stop their SAR operations at sea, until May this year the Italian government had never openly and actively opposed search and rescue operations per se’.
- 8.
Legal Studies on Migration Association (ASGI), Accesso civico ai Ministeri dell’interno e dei Trasporti: nessun provvedimento formale di chiusura dei porti, 10 January 2019 (https://www.asgi.it/media/comunicati-stampa/chiusura-porti-accesso-civico/).
References
Algostino, A. (2018). Il decreto ‘sicurezza e immigrazione’ (decreto legge n. 113 del 2018): estinzione del diritto di asilo, repressione del dissenso e diseguaglianza. Costituzionalismo.it, 16(2), 167–199. Available at www.costituzionalismo.it
Alterio, A. M. (2019). Reactive vs Structural Approach: A Public Law Response to Populism. Global Constitutionalism, 8(2), 270–296.
Armillei, R. (2017). Boat Arrivals and the ‘Threat’ to Italian National Security: Between a ‘Moral Panic’ Approach and the EU’s Failure to Create a Cohesive Asylum-Seeking Policy. Journal of Applied Security Research, 12(1), 141–159.
Baer, S. (2018). The Rule of – And Not by Any – Law. On Constitutionalism. Current Legal Problems, 71(1), 335–368.
Benvenuti, M. (2018). La forma dell’acqua. Il diritto di asilo costituzionale tra attuazione, applicazione e attualità. Questione Giustizia, 2, 14–27.
Berlin, I. (1968). To Define Populism. The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library, (6). Available at http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/bibliography/bib111bLSE.pdf
Bin, R. (2007). Che cos’è la Costituzione? Quaderni costituzionali, 27(1), 11–52.
Blokker, P. (2018). Populist Constitutionalism. In C. de la Torre (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Global Populism. London: Routledge.
Blokker, P. (2019). Varieties of Populist Constitutionalism: The Transnational Dimension. German Law Journal, 20(3), 332–350.
Blokker, P., Bugaric, B., & Halmai, G. (2019). Introduction: Populist Constitutionalism: Varieties, Complexities, and Contradictions. German Law Journal, 20(3), 291–295.
Bonetti, P. (2018). Editoriale. Diritto Immigrazione Cittadinanza, 20(2), 2018.
Bugaric, B. (2019). The Two Faces of Populism: Between Authoritarian and Democratic Populism. German Law Journal, 20(3), 390–400.
Campesi, G. (2017). Chiedere asilo in tempo di crisi. Accoglienza, confinamento e detenzione ai margini d’Europa. In C. Marchetti & B. Pinelli (Eds.), Confini d’Europa. Modelli a confronto e inclusioni informali. Milano: Cortina.
Campesi, G. (2018). Seeking Asylum in Times of Crisis: Reception, Confinement, and Detention at Europe’s Southern Border. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 37(1), 44–70.
Carrera, S., & Cortinovis, R. (2019). Search and Rescue, Disembarkation and Relocation Arrangements in the Mediterranean Sailing Away from Responsibility? CEPS, 10.
Carta, S. (2018). Beyond Closed Ports: The New Italian Decree-Law on Immigration and Security. Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy. Available at https://eumigrationlawblog.eu/beyond-closed-ports-the-new-italian-decree-law-on-immigration-and-security/
Casolari, F. (2016). The EU’s Hotspot Approach to Managing the Migration Crisis: A Blindspot for International Responsibility? Italian Yearbook of International Law, 25(1), 109–134.
Castelli Gattinara, P. (2017). The ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Italy as a Crisis of Legitimacy. Contemporary Italian Politics, 9(3), 318–331.
Cavasino, E. (2018). Diritti, sicurezza, solidarietà e responsabilità nella protezione della persona migrante. federalismi.it, Focus-Human Rights, 6(3), 1–24. Available at www.federalismi.it
Cetin, E. (2015). The Italian Left and Italy’s (Evolving) Foreign Policy of Immigration Controls. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 20(3), 377–397.
Chetail, V. (2019). International Migration Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Corsi, C. (2018). La trilogia della Corte costituzionale: ancora su requisiti di lungo-residenza per l’accesso alle prestazioni sociali. Le Regioni, 46(5–6), 1170–1187.
Cortese, F. (2017). La difficile “classificazione” dei migranti. In M. Savino (Ed.), La crisi migratoria tra Italia e Unione europea: diagnosi e prospettiva (pp. 141–172). Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica.
Cusumano, E., & Gombeer K. (2018). In Deep Waters: The Legal, Humanitarian and Political Implications of Closing Italian Ports to Migrant Rescuers, Mediterranean Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2018.1532145.
Dimitriadis, I. (2019). Working Paper on the Construction of the Crisis-Invasion Discourse by Different Stakeholders in Italy. Available at https://www.magyc.uliege.be/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/WP3-D.3.3-The-construction-of-the-crisis-invasion-discourse-Unimi.pdf
Doyle, O., Longo, E., & Pin, A. (2019). Populism: A Health Check for Constitutional Democracy? German Law Journal, 20(3), 401–407.
Fournier, T. (2018). From Rhetoric to Action – A Constitutional Analysis of Populism. EUI Working Papers, 8, 1–27.
Halmai, G. (2018). Is there Such Thing as ‘Populist Constitutionalism’? The Case of Hungary. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 11(3), 323–339.
Kaidatzis, A. (2018). Populist Constitutionalism as a Critique on Liberal (or Legal) Constitutionalism. Oñati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law.
Martinico, G. (2019). Fra mimetismo e parassitismo. Brevi considerazioni a proposito del complesso rapporto fra populismo e costituzionalismo. Questione Giustizia, 38(1), 71–78.
Mény, Y., & Surel, Y. (2002). The Constitutive Ambiguity of Populism. In Y. Mény & Y. Surel (Eds.), Democracies and the Populist Challenge. London: Palgrave.
Moreno-Lax, V., & Lemberg-Pedersen, M. (2019). Border-Induced Displacement: The Ethical and Legal Implications of Distance-Creation Through Externalization. Questions of International Law, Zoomorphology, 56, 5–33.
Mudde, C. (2017). Populism: An Ideational Approach. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 27–47). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mueller, J.-W. (2017). Populism and Constitutionalism. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 590–607). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Newell, J. L. (2018). Living in Interesting Times. Contemporary Italian Politics, 10(3), 215–217.
Penasa, S., & Pretto, C. (2016). The Italian Reception System. In P. Minderhoud & K. Zwaan (Eds.), The Recast Reception Conditions Directive: Central Themes. Problem Issues, and Implementation in Selected Member States (pp. 97–112). Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers.
Savino, M. (2015). “L’amministrativizzazione” della libertà personale e del due process dei migranti. Diritto Immigrazione Cittadinanza, 17(3–4), 50–71.
Savino, M. (2016). The Refugee Crisis as a Challenge for Public Law: The Italian Case. German Law Journal, 17(6), 981–1004.
Savino, M. (2017). Lo straniero nella giurisprudenza costituzionale: tra cittadinanza e territorialità. Quaderni costituzionali, 37(1), 41–72.
Savino, M. (2019). Refashioning Resettlement: From Border Externalization to Legal Pathways for Asylum. In S. Carrera, A. P. L. den Hertog, M. Panizzon, & D. Kostakopoulou (Eds.), EU External Migration Policies in an Era of Global Mobilities: Intersecting Policy Universes (pp. 81–104). Leiden: Brill-Nijhoff.
Stoyanova, V. (2018). Populism, Exceptionality, and the Right to Family Life of Migrants Under the European Convention on Human Rights. European Journal of Legal Studies, 10(2), 83–124.
Stumpf, J. (2006). The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime and Sovereign Power. American University Law Review, 56(2), 368–419.
Taggart, P. (2017). Populism in Western Europe. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart, P. O. Espejo, & P. Ostiguy (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Populism (pp. 342–362). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trimikliniotis, N. (2019). Migration and the Refugee Dissensus in Europe: Borders, Security and Austerity. London: Routledge.
Tushnet, M. (2019). Varieties of Populism. German Law Journal, 20(3), 382–389.
Villa, M. (2018). Sea Arrivals to Italy: The Cost of Deterrence Policies. ISPI Commentary. Available at www.ispionline.it
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Penasa, S. (2020). The Italian Way to Migration: Was It ‘True’ Populism? Populist Policies as Constitutional Antigens. In: Delledonne, G., Martinico, G., Monti, M., Pacini, F. (eds) Italian Populism and Constitutional Law. Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37401-3_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37401-3_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37400-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37401-3
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)