Liminality and Ritual Order: Italy\u2019s National Elections of 2018

Citroni and Navarini provide a summary of the relationship between order and liminality and show how this analytical framework facilitates a better understanding of the consolidation of \u2018populist\u2019 political forces and their incorporation in Italy\u2019s government. The authors focus on the campaigning prior to the Italian elections of 2018 and their immediate aftermath, a period when the frameworks of ritual order and liminality overlapped; they draw attention to the emergence of threshold zones of political discourse and practice that gradually moved from the periphery to the \u2018symbolic centre\u2019. This process involved subversion of the established rules and changes to the symbols of social ties, such as representations of national cohesion and \u2018the other\u2019, that normally affect the reproduction of community power.Citroni and Navarini provide a summary of the relationship between order and liminality and show how this analytical framework facilitates a better understanding of the consolidation of \u201cpopulist\u201d political forces and their incorporation in Italy\u2019s government. The authors focus on the campaigning prior to the Italian elections of 2018 and their immediate aftermath, a period when the frameworks of ritual order and liminality overlapped; they draw attention to the emergence of threshold zones of political discourse and practice that gradually moved from the periphery to the \u201csymbolic centre\u201d. This process involved subversion of the established rules and changes to the symbols of social ties, such as representations of national cohesion and \u201cthe other\u201d, that normally affect the reproduction of community power