‘No regionalism please, we are <i>Leghisti</i> !’ The transformation of the Italian Lega Nord under the leadership of Matteo Salvini

Albertazzi, Daniele; Giovannini, Arianna; Seddone, Antonella

doi:10.1080/13597566.2018.1512977

Cited by 223 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…In Italy, Matteo Salvini led the transformation of the Lega Nordofficially known just as Lega since 2018from a regionalist party appealing to Northern Italy, into a nation-based party, waving the motto 'Italians first!' (Albertazzi, Giovannini, & Seddone, 2018;Mazzoleni & Ruzza, 2018). Beyond Europe, the most relevant sovereignist claim emerged in the 2017 election of the US president, Donald Trump, with his slogan 'America first'.…”

Section: Bridging Sovereignism and Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sovereignist wine in populist bottles? An introduction

Basile

Mazzoleni

2019

European Politics and Society

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Sovereignist claims are on the risein Europe, the USA, and beyond. In dealing with processes such as globalization and supranational integration, which have progressively shifted powers and competencies away from nation states, these transformations have created a fertile terrain for reactions against the sources of such insecurity, which find full expression in the sovereignist claims to 'take back control', that is to say to return to the traditional understanding of sovereignty being based upon mutually exclusive territories. These sources of insecurity and social unrest have also provided structures of political opportunity for the electoral success of populist parties. Despite its relevance for the understanding of the populist discourse, however, sovereignty has been largely under-theorised by scholars dealing with populism. Accordingly, we propose a new research agenda to study populist mobilization that focuses on the linkage between populism and sovereignism, while also encouraging further theoretical and empirical studies, focusing on both the demand side and the supply side. In particular, we suggest some crucial aspects with which the Special Issue seeks to engage, before pointing to some substantial implications that are likely to emerge from the findings of this research agenda.

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Section: Bridging Sovereignism and Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sovereignist wine in populist bottles? An introduction

Basile

Mazzoleni

2019

European Politics and Society

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“…Th rough his Facebook page, Matteo Salvini sets and builds a strong connection with supporters (Bobba, 2015). Outside the Northern strongholds, the Lega Nord is basically a virtual organization: there is only the leader (Albertazzi et al, 2018).…”

Section: Th E Case Of the (Northern) Leaguementioning

confidence: 99%

When Charisma is no Longer Enough. Insights on Populist Parties’ Leadership from the (Northern) League

Sandri

Seddone

Venturino

2019

Polish Political Science Review

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Several scholars of populism have pointed out that populist parties rely very oft en on so-called charismatic leadership (Canovan, 1981; McDonnell, 2015). While the rise of populist parties in Europe in the last decade is quite evident and well-studied, what remains understudied is how this phenomenon interacts with other transformations that are currently shaping parties and party systems in European democracies. In particular, what is the interplay between the rise of populism, political leadership and personalization of politics? This link between populism and leadership could be understood in the light of the change occurring within party organizations, and internal party democratization in particular (Musella, 2015; Pogunkte and Webb, 2007; Karvonen, 2010; Scarrow et al. 2017). Following these studies underlining a close relationship between populism, leadership and inclusive leadership selection methods, in this paper we aim at empirically exploring how the personalization and democratization of organizational patterns affect the role of the leader in populist parties. To what extent does the use of inclusive selection methods of party leaders within populist parties affect the scope of their organizational power and strengthens the party’s personalization patterns? To explore this research question, we focus on a case study, the Lega Nord (LN) in Italy as an empirical illustration and we rely on original survey data, on aggregated electoral data as well as on primary and secondary data on party organizational rules.

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“…From the supply-side, we can at least find two explanations of this exploit: the first focuses on the change of leadership in the Lega (D'Alimonte, 2015;Albertazzi et al, 2018). After over 20 years of the guidance of Umberto Bossi, in 2013 the leadership passed to Matteo Salvini, who progressively changed the discourse and the aims of the party (Albertazzi, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several pundits have stressed that the actual aim of Salvini was to transform the old regionalist Lega into something new: a party radically rooted on the right-side of the political spectrum, that exploits with its rhetoric the anti-immigrant and anti-EU sentiments that are largely present in the Italian population (Albertazzi, 2016;Brunazzo and Gilbert, 2017). Furthermore, Salvini's political action has been devoted to turning the Lega into a fully national party (Albertazzi et al 2018), that could count on votes of people far from the traditional geographical boundaries of the original Lega.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As pointed out by Albertazzi and colleagues (2018), the Lega claims indeed moved from a mainly regionalist focus on autonomy and federalism to a national focus on nativism and protectionism. In such respect, the Lega's main enemies shifted from the national level, namely Rome and the Southern Italians, to the supranational one, namely the EU, Brussels bureaucrats, and the immigrants (Albertazzi et al, 2018). As a result, it is relevant to remember the attempts of Salvini to organize electoral committees also in Southern Italy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The ‘new’ League success in the red belt and its post-fascist inheritance: evidence from 2018 National Elections

Mancosu¹,

Ladini²

2018

Preprint

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In 2018 national elections, the Lega, an Italian xenophobic right-wing party, has dramatically increased its consensus in the ‘red belt’, the central part of the country traditionally ruled by center-left parties. Pundits have argued that this performance can be attributed to the effect of the new leadership of Matteo Salvini, who shifted the ideological location of the party (that now aims at being a national right-wing party), combined with the drop in preferences of Forza Italia, the ally/competitor in the right-wing ideological spectrum. This paper aims at providing new insights in the explanation of these electoral outcomes, by hypothesizing that geographical trajectories of diffusion of the party are correlated with the presence of geographically clustered post-fascist minorities present in the region since the First Republic age. By employing official figures at the municipality level, the paper analyses the relationship between the percentages of votes for the MSI (the most relevant post-fascist force during the First Republic) in 1976 and the Lega Nord in the 2006-2018 period. Consistent with our hypothesis, the post-fascist inheritance is significantly correlated with the local prevalence for the Lega Nord in 2018, after the change in the political discourse and leadership of the party. Empirical analyses provide evidence of our expectations, even when controlling for unemployment rate and percentage of immigrants.

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‘No regionalism please, we are Leghisti !’ The transformation of the Italian Lega Nord under the leadership of Matteo Salvini

Abstract: View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 15 View citing articles 'No regionalism please, we are Leghisti !' The transformation of the Italian Lega Nord under the leadership of Matteo Salvini

Cited by 223 publications

References 26 publications

Sovereignist wine in populist bottles? An introduction

Sovereignist wine in populist bottles? An introduction

When Charisma is no Longer Enough. Insights on Populist Parties’ Leadership from the (Northern) League

The ‘new’ League success in the red belt and its post-fascist inheritance: evidence from 2018 National Elections

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