Educational policy agenda, ideological transformation and radical right populism: the case of the education-identity nexus of the Northern League in Italy, 1994-2018

ABSTRACT

The study of the relationship between parties and education policies has so far largely disregarded populist parties. Despite the success of this party family, little attention has been paid to their proposals in terms of education and interpretation of the role of schools and higher education in society. The central research question of the paper concerns the development of the educational agenda of the Northern League party in Italy, from 1994 to 2018. If the general framework suggests that political parties are losing power and influence in education matters, Italy can be considered an interesting deviant case. Education policy is politically divisive, with multiple stakeholders, different ideological preferences and vested interests. It should therefore come as no surprise that a party, as deeply rooted in the Italian party and political system as the Northern League, has invested in positioning itself in education policies both in terms of identity and argumentative strategies associated with the use of political symbols. Against this background, the purpose of the paper is to study how the Northern League’s education agenda is shaped by symbolic frames and rhetorical narratives that illustrate and reflect the ideological tenets and evolution of the party over the last decades.

KEYWORDS:

• Populism
• Northern league
• schools
• policy agenda
• Italy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this section, we will refer to the following election manifestos for the legislative elections 1994, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013, 2018. Full details can be found in the final References.

2. See, for instance, the 2017 party manifesto of the German right-wing populist party ‘Alternative für Deutschland’ (AfD- Alternative for Germany) delivered for the legislative elections (pp.45-46); the French ‘Rassemblement National’ (RN- National Rally) programme for the 2022 presidential elections (engagements 101–107); the 2017 party manifesto of the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Österreich (FPÖ- Freedom Party of Austria) delivered for the 2017 legislative elections (p. 20).