The Lega Nord Back in Government

Abstract

Following the 2008 general election, the Italian regionalist populist party Lega Nord returned to government as part of a centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi. Since then, the party has been able to thrive thanks to its holding of key ministries and its consolidation of ‘issue ownership’ over its main themes of federal reform and immigration/law and order. In this period, it has also made major gains in the 2009 European Parliament and 2010 regional elections. This article analyses the Lega's success since 2008 by considering the actions of the party (in particular the legislation it has sponsored and the narrative offered of its time in government) as well as the reactions of mid-ranking leaders and activists. The authors argue that, contrary to the expectations of scholars, populists serving as junior coalition partners are not necessarily destined to tame their rhetoric, face splits or see their electoral support decline. On the contrary, by focusing on selected themes and policies and adopting effective communication strategies, the Lega has continued to enjoy electoral success and seen its membership grow. The article concludes, therefore, that claims about populists being inherently unable to survive in government and enjoy success seem to have been premature.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the College of Arts and Law at the University of Birmingham and the Leverhulme Trust (Application ID: 20761; Funder ref: F/00 094/AZ) for the financial support provided. This paper forms part of a broader research project sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust which looks at populist success in government in Italy and Switzerland. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2009 PSA, ECPR and SISP Conferences in Manchester, Potsdam and Rome, respectively, and at the 2010 SPSA Conference in Atlanta. Our thanks to all colleagues who offered comments on these occasions as well as to the anonymous referees of this journal.

Notes

1. We consider the LN primarily a ‘regionalist populist party’ (McDonnell 2006) and define populism as ‘an ideology which pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice’ (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2008: 3).

2. The figures presented in Tables 4 and 5, while striking, do not of course provide us with definitive proof that the flow of votes exiting the PDL necessarily goes to the Lega and vice versa. However, when read against the backdrop of recent electoral studies (Demos 2008; Istituto Cattaneo 2008, 2010), the challenge that the LN poses to its larger coalition partner in northern regions becomes very obvious.

3. In the end, however, only 294,000 applications for regularisation were received (Pasquinelli 2009).

4. Seeking the approval of purely symbolic measures is common among Western European populist parties – see, for example, the case of the FPÖ in Carinthia (Heinisch 2003: 121).

5. See http://www.iprmarketing.it/file/image/FidMonitor/2009_12_21_FidMonitor_Min.jpg (accessed 20 January 2010).

6. See http://www.leganord.org/ilmovimento/manifesti2009.asp (accessed 3 January 2010).

7. We are grateful to the Lega Nord representatives who agreed to be interviewed for this article. Semi-structured elite interviews were held between March and May 2009 in Rome with Federico Bricolo, Manuela Dal Lago and Pietro Fontanini, in Trieste with Danilo Narduzzi and Federico Razzini, and in Turin with Mario Carossa, Claudio Dutto and Roberto Zenga.

8. Semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with Lega Nord activists in Piedmont and Veneto in May 2009. Names of interviewees and of specific party branches have been omitted in order to preserve anonymity.

9. Walter Veltroni was leader at the 2008 general election of the main centre-left party, the Partito Democratico (PD – Democratic Party).

10. See http://www.radio-padania.com/rpl/defaultasp.asp (accessed 1 April 2009). Radio Padania is one of the official mouthpieces of the Lega Nord, hosted in its Milan national centre alongside the party's offices and official paper La Padania, its television channel, and the offices of the influential regional branch, the Lega Lombarda.

11. Of course voters might not be aware of the reasons why they support a party, and some of these respondents have probably given us the answer they felt was ‘right’, especially in the context of a rally that has always attracted huge crowds of ‘hard-core’ believers. However, we see this as a feature, rather than a weakness, of this part of our research. In short, there is no attempt on our part to try and ‘get to the truth’ of what respondents ‘really think’. What we are interested in is the narrative these people put forward. When asked to explain why they vote for their party, LN activists/sympathisers cannot but dig into the repertoire that is available to them, and what they come up with is precisely what the party has been providing for them on a silver plate: ‘immigration and federalism’.

12. It is important to note that these two questions do not follow each other on the questionnaire.