Resistance to Institutions and Cultural Distance: Brigandage in Post-Unification Italy

Abstract

We study how cultural distance affects the rejection of imposed institutions. To do so, we exploit the transplantation of Piedmontese institutions on Southern Italy that occurred during the Italian unification. We assemble a novel and unique dataset containing municipal-level information on episodes of brigandage, a form of violent uprising against the unitary government. We use the geographic distance from local settlements of Piedmontese descent as a proxy for the cultural distance between each municipality and the new rulers. We find robust evidence that cultural distance from the origins of the transplanted institutions is significantly associated with more intense resistance to these institutions. Our results further suggest that the rejection of the transplanted institutions may have a long-lasting effect on political participation.

Internal Borders and Population Geography in the Unification of Italy

“…Anderson and van Wincoop (2004) break such costs down into policy barriers (such as tariffs), language differences, currency differences, costs of acquiring information about markets and trading partners, and costs of contracting and enforcement across jurisdictional boundaries. Legal (Giorcelli and Moser 2020), cultural (Lecce, Ogliari, andOrlando 2021), andlinguistic (De Mauro 1963;Tamburelli 2014) differences all mattered in Italy, but it was currency differences and protectionist barriers that were most significant. 4 Six monetary systems operated in Italy on the eve of unification, some on a silver standard and others bimetallic, some decimalized and others adhering to older multiples of 12 or 20 (Conte, Toniolo, and Vecchi 2003;Chiaruttini 2018;Sannucci 1989).…”