Matteo Salvini's Northern League in 2016

Abstract

Matteo Salvini's Northern League in 2016: between stasis and new opportunities2016 may be regarded as a year of transition for the Northern League. After reaching one of the lowest points in its history in 2012 and 2013, under Matteo Salvini's leadership the League has since then experienced a period of recovery and significant electoral successes. In 2015 many commentators expected that the Northern League would replace Forza Italia (FI), Silvio Berlusconi's party, as the largest party of the centre-right and Salvini would be the candidate to challenge Matteo Renzi as Prime Minister. Yet the 2016 local elections seem to mark a slowdown in the political expansion of the party. Salvini's popularity did not grow further and even started to decline. At the same time, the success of Donald Trump in the US, the outcome of the constitutional referendum in December 2016 (see chapter X by Martin Bull), and Matteo Renzi's eventual defeat and resignation as Prime Minister, may open new opportunities for the party and Salvini's leadership.It is still too early to say whether, as a consequence of the referendum results, the League will follow a trajectory of further expansion after a period of stasis. To be sure, the party still needs to overcome two important structural constraints, which became evident during the local elections. The first one is its difficulty to expand its electoral and organisational reach to the regions of southern Italy, thus becoming a fully national(-ised) party. The second one is the new increase in electoral support for the 5 Star Movement (M5S), with which the League competes to attract the so-called anti-system or protest vote. More generally, the bloc which opposes the governmental camp is very crowded and fragmented and this poses some challenges to Salvini's populist project. This chapter starts from an overview of the new political profile of the Northern League under Salvini's leadership. It then moves to a discussion of its electoral campaign and alliance strategies in the 2016 local elections. An analysis of electoral results and trends in opinion polls from 2013 to 2016 is followed by a section which focuses on the challenges that the League had to face after the local elections. The concluding section highlights the new opportunities arising from Trump's victory in the US and Renzi's defeat in the constitutional referendum at the end of the year. Changing political identity under Salvini's leadershipSince 2014 Matteo Salvini has developed a strategy based on two key objectives: transforming the Northern League into a national party, thus downplaying the ideological and organisational paradigms of regionalism and federalism; and subverting the political hierarchies within the centre-right, by challenging the leading role of a declining Forza Italia.The Northern League has undergone a profound process of organisational and ideological transformation. At first sight, even after moving from Umberto Bossi to Matteo Salvini , the party seems to have remained a fundamentally leadership-based, ...

With a Little Help from Their Friends: The Consequences of Populists in National Government for Policymaking in Local Government

“…For example, while the Lega Nord had previously accepted the concentration of its electoral support in the north of Italy, once the (notably rebranded) 'Lega' sought national gains it gave more attention to localities in previously untapped regions in the centre and south of the country (Albertazzi et al 2018). The strategic and symbolic benefits of victory in certain localities is demonstrated by the involvement of national party figures in local campaigning, recruitment and organizational development (Vampa 2017). Hitherto less studied is how parties interact with such localities when their local branch gains office.…”