The centre no longer holds: the Lega, Matteo Salvini and the remaking of Italian immigration politics

Figures & data

Table 1. Key policy actions throughout four recent time periods of Italian migration governance.

Period	Key government actions	Governing coalition	Description
Pre-crisis	Intermittent large-scale regularisations	Both centre-left and centre-right	Between 1986 and 2011, Italy regularised around 1.4 million migrants, the most of any European country, notably 634,728 in 2002. Combined with restricting legislation (e.g. the 1998 Turco-Napolitano Law and the 2002 Bossi-Fini Law). Further, more restricted regularisations occurred in 2009 and 2011.
	Flow decrees		Ex post instruments to regulate migrants, e.g. Berlusconi's 2006 ‘maxi-decree’ on entry quotas, allowing 470,000 workers. Suffered policy drift over time.
	Increased securitisation		Centre-right's 2008 Security Package facilitated expulsions, criminalisation of irregular immigration and longer detention for irregular immigrants. Centre-left's 2002 1998 Turco-Napolitano Law created Temporary Detention Centres (supported by centre-right)
The ‘crisis’: 2015–2018	Deal with Libya	centre-left and small centrist parties	2017 ‘Minniti Deal’ with Libya provided financial resources in exchange for breaking up traffickers
	New internal control measures		2017 decree expanded capacity for identification and expulsion of irregular migrants.
	Participation in EU search-and-rescue		Notably ‘Operation Sophia’, the EU's naval mission to combat people-smuggling and deaths at sea that was set up during the 2015 migration crisis
Under Salvini: 2018–2019	‘Salvini Decree’	Lega and M5S	Abolished humanitarian protection status for migrants, reduced barriers to stripping migrants of Italian citizenship, lengthened the naturalisation process, stopped asylum seekers from accessing reception centres and introduced a fast-track expulsion system for ‘dangerous’ asylum seekers.
	Ending search-and-rescue, prohibiting NGOs		Pressured to end EU naval component of Operation Sophia, arguing it encouraged smuggling. Closed ports to NGO boats.
	Conflict mobilisation		Efforts to capitalise on migration sentiment through high-profile conflicts and rhetoric in office (in contrast to past moderation effect of office-holding) and following logic of 2018 election (Emanuele and Paparo 2018).
Post-Salvini	Permitting NGO docking	M5S and PD	NGO ships have been allowed to dock to offload migrants, explicitly reversing approach of Salvini
	Pursuing EU redistribution of migrants		2019 deal between Germany, France, Italy, Malta and Spain to redistribute migrants, but failed to win wider support from other member states

Figure 1. Quotas for non-EU migrant workers (Decreto Flussi). Sources: ISPI and Ministry of Interior.

Figure 2. Sea Arrivals and Asylum Applications in Italy 2008–2019. Source: Ministry of Interior.

Figure 3. Immigration policy and salience of selected Italian parties, 2006–2017.

Notes: Polk et al. (2017). Each score represents average response of 15 experts on 0–10 scale. Source: Polk et al. (2017).

Figure 4. Italian and EU attitudes to immigration from outside the EU and other EU member states.

Notes: Eurobarometer, 2014–2019. All 28 EU member states surveyed. ‘Please tell me whether each of the following statements evokes a positive or negative feeling for you. Immigration of people from other EU Member States / Immigration of people from outside the EU’. Net positivity = Very positive + Fairly positive − Fairly negative − Very negative.

Figure 5. The salience of immigration amongst Italian and European citizens and the national and European Parliament election vote shares of Lega Nord, 2008–2019.

Notes: Eurobarometer, 2009–2019. All 28 EU member states surveyed. Around 1000 respondents per member state. What do you think are the two most important issues facing (our country/the EU) at the moment?

Table 2. Regional variation in attitudes to immigration, Europe and democracy.

	Italy	EU	North-west	North-east	Centre	South	Islands
Net % positive feeling of immigration from outside EU	−27.6	−15.5	−7.1	13.1	−39.3	−45.6	−59.7
Net % positive feeling of immigration from EU members	2.9	31.4	29.8	62.6	−30.4	−2.6	−40.0
% immigration one of most important issues affecting my country	36.1	22.1	37.4	45.8	33.0	30.7	41.2
% immigration one of most important issues affecting EU	40.3	38.0	39.5	48.4	46.4	37.1	32.8
Net % satisfied with democracy in my country	−35.5	13.0	−27.1	−2.0	−26.3	−41.1	−17.7

Notes: data taken from the May 2017, Eurobarometer. All 28 EU member states surveyed.

Emanuele, Vincenzo, and Aldo Paparo. 2018. Gli Sfidanti al Governo: Disincanto, Nuovi Conflitti e Diverse Strategie Dietro Il Voto Del 4 Marzo 2018. Rome: Centro Italiano Studi Elettorali.

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Polk, Jonathan, Jan Rovny, Ryan Bakker, Erica Edwards, Liesbet Hooghe, Seth Jolly, Jelle Koedam, et al. 2017. “Explaining the Salience of Anti-Elitism and Reducing Political Corruption for Political Parties in Europe with the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey Data.” Research & Politics 4 (1): 2053168016686915.

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