Radical right populism and the backlash against gender equality: the case of the Lega (Nord)

ABSTRACT

The Italian Lega is part of the political phenomenon of far right populism that is on the rise in Europe. Since 2013, under Matteo Salvini’s leadership, the party has moved to the radical right, in the name of the people. This ideological transformation, built on nationalization and othering processes, has made the Lega a radical right populist party with a conservative agenda on gender and family issues. The most virulent attack against women’s and LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans) rights came when the Lega was in power with the Five-star Movement after the 2018 general election. This article uses critical frame analysis to explore the Lega’s ideological transformation, with the aim of identifying when, how and why gender became a salient issue in the Lega’s ideology and made the party the key player in backsliding on gender equality policies in Italy.

KEYWORDS:

• Lega
• Italy
• far-right populism
• gender equality
• LGBT rights
• women’s rights
• backsliding

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the previous versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. My definition of radical right party is based on the classification Mudde (2019, 7) provided in his comprehensive study of the far right party family which includes the two categories of extreme right and radical right. The two differ in their stances towards democracy. While the extreme right contests the main features of democracy (including majority rule and popular sovereignty), the radical right accepts democracy but rejects some key elements such as minority rights and the rule of law.

2. The widely used ‘LGBT’ acronym, standing for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual, is adopted throughout the text. It is used as an umbrella term to cover the whole community with the inclusion of other varieties of gender identity (queer, intersexual, asexual).

3. See the Manifesto Project Database https://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/ (last accessed 1 July 2020).

4. The programme of the event can be found here https://wcfverona.org/

5. The text of the bill and stages of the parliamentary debate can be found here: http://www.senato.it/leg/18/BGT/Schede/Ddliter/50388.htm (last accessed 22 September 2020). For a journalist’s comment, see https://www.ilpost.it/2018/11/10/ddl-pillon-spiegato-bene/.

6. The letter is available here https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WG/Communications/OL_ITA_5_2018.pdf

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alessia Donà

Alessia Donà is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Trento (Italy).