Abstract
In this paper, I discuss critically the concept of populism trying to operationalise it for empirical analysis. I will present a case study, which is an analysis of the political rhetoric of Matteo Renzi based on the content analysis. Through two main categories and four subcategories, I will show that populism can be found also in leader which are not expression of the far-right movements or parties and that for the Italian case we can see a specific form of populism, institutionalized and “from above” using the definition of the Italian political scientists, Marco Revelli. The case study aims to provide some additional empirical finding for the study of populism in Italy.