Daniele Albertazzi
Biographic Data
| ID | 641641 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniele Albertazzi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniele |
| FAMILY NAME | Albertazzi |
| SIGNATURE | ALBERTAZZI D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2285-6593 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 506 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The ‘mainstream’ in contemporary Europe: A Bi-Dimensional and Operationalisable Conceptualisation
The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it offers a new definition of ‘mainstream’. Moving beyond understandings of the concept that focus exclusively on parties’ alternation in power, or their ideology/message, the article’s conceptualisation considers both supply and demand sides of politics. Hence, an attitudinal component to functional definitions is added. This implies that, to be called ‘mainstream’, certain attitudes must be shared by…
Why do party elites incentivise activism? The case of the populist radical right
Partisan dealignment in Western Europe has gone hand in hand with the decline of electoral participation and active membership in political parties. Yet political participation and activism are not necessarily a thing of the past, and scholars have for instance observed these characteristics in several contemporary populist radical right parties (PRRPs). Drawing on the analysis of 124 interviews with party representatives from four European PRRPs…
Beyond anger: The populist radical right on TikTok
The video streaming app TikTok is increasingly deployed by political actors to reach younger voters, and this includes populist radical right (PRR) parties. In this study, our expectation is that longstanding PRR parties will be more likely than new PRR challengers to try to de-demonise their image as they land on the platform, in order to counteract years of negative coverage. To test this argument, we use a novel theoretical framework that capt…
The right-wing alliance at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic: All change
The growth of populist radical right parties at the expense of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) has recently reconfigured the right in Italy. Changes in power relations created for the Lega (League), Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI) and FI, different competitive pressures, resulting in distinctive–and often conflicting–responses to the pandemic. Based on the analysis of these parties’ Twitter accounts and on survey data, this article exam…
Populist electoral competition in Italy: The impact of sub-national contextual factors
This article investigates the impact of sub-national contextual variations on the performance of populist actors in a country in which several electorally relevant populist parties exist: Italy. By employing a multi-model Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the 2018 Italian general election, it explores the extent to which factors such as the distribution of ‘economic losers’ and the impact of migration, political discontent and societal ma…
Right-Wing Populist Party Organisation Across Europe: The Survival of the Mass-Party? Introduction to the Thematic Issue
This thematic issue assesses the organisational forms of a broad range of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) across Europe (12 in total). It interrogates received wisdom about the supposed leader-centeredness of such parties and investigates, in particular, the extent to which the mass party, as an organisational model, remains popular among RWPPs. This introduction presents the aims, research questions, and analytical framework of the issue and…
Right-Wing Populist Party Organisation Across Europe: The Survival of the Mass-Party? Conclusion to the Thematic Issue
This article provides a comparative conclusion to the thematic issue on the organisational characteristics of 12 right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) across Europe. We observe that many RWPPs—at least partially—adopt features of the mass party model. This finding illustrates the ideological aspects behind organisational choices: For populist parties, in particular, it is important to signal societal rootedness and “closeness to the people.” It fur…
No regionalism please, we are Leghisti !’ The transformation of the Italian Lega Nord under the leadership of Matteo Salvini
Whilst the Lega Nord has traditionally been defined as a regionalist populist party, since Matteo Salvini became its leader in 2013 it has undergone a process of profound ideological transformation. This article assesses this momentous change and the impact it could have on the future of the Lega, drawing on a content analysis of Salvini’s and the party’s Facebook posts, as well as interviews with regional leaders. It argues that, under Salvini’s…
Going, going,… not quite gone yet? ‘Bossi’s Lega’ and the survival of the mass party
The scholarly literature has devoted a lot of attention to the declining number of party members in post-industrial societies, arguing that parties now lack the incentives to maintain a large membership. However, some right-wing populist parties have continued to rely on activism by being rooted at the local level and by fostering the creation of closed communities of ideologically committed members. In short, they have adopted the organisational…
Populists in Power
The main area of sustained populist growth in recent decades has been Western Europe, where populist parties have not only endured longer than expected, but have increasingly begun to enter government. Focusing on three high-profile cases in Italy and Switzerland – the Popolo della Libertà (PDL), Lega Nord (LN) and Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) – Populists in Power is the first in-depth comparative study to examine whether these parties are in…
Surviving the perfect storm: Italy after the 2013 elections
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Introduction: A mountain giving birth to a mouse? On the impact and legacy of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy
Love him or loathe him, Silvio Berlusconi is widely assumed to be Europe's most remarkable politician of recent decades, one who has not only affected the nature of electoral competition or the shape of the party system in Italy, but one who has influenced the country's political agenda to the extent that he himself and his role in politics have for long periods been the most important issues around which party competition has taken place
Populism and Liberal Democracy: Populists in Government in Austria, Italy, Poland and Switzerland
The enduring electoral success of populist parties across Europe and the increasing opportunities they have gained to access government in recent years bring once more into relief the question of whether populism and democracy are fully compatible. In this article we show how, despite playing different roles in government within very different political systems, and despite the numerous constraints placed upon them (for instance, EU membership, i…
Amici fragili: The alliance between the Lega Nord and the Popolo della Libertà as seen by their representatives and members
The alliance between the Lega Nord (LN) and Forza Italia (FI), later Popolo della Libertà (PDL), continued, uninterrupted, for over a decade, until November 2011. The problems that beset it under the fourth Berlusconi government are known; however, there is a lack of academic analysis of how such an alliance was seen and experienced by the people who made up the fabric of its constituent organisations. Based on interviews with institutional repre…
Di lotta e di governo: The Lega Nord and Rifondazione Comunista in office
Since 1994, Italian politics has seen a number of coalitions including parties whose identity has been strongly based on their ‘outsider’ status as uncompromising opposition movements which would not previously consider government participation. This article examines the contrasting experiences in office of two such parties: the regionalist populist Lega Nord (LN) and the radical left Rifondazione Comunista (RC). While the Lega confounded expecta…
The Lega Nord Back in Government
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…
Reconciling ‘Voice’ and ‘Exit: Swiss and Italian Populists in Power
This article focuses on the strategic communication of four populist parties which have served in national and/or sub-national governments during the last two decades: the Lega Nord (LN) and Forza Italia (FI) in Italy, as well as the Lega dei Ticinesi (LDT) and the Schweizerische Volkspartei/Union Démocratique du Centre (SVP/UDC) in Switzerland. The analysis identifies two strategies which have been adopted by these parties (i.e. the ‘opposition …
Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy
Twenty-First Century Populism analyses the phenomenon of sustained populist growth in Western Europe by looking at the conditions facilitating populism in specific national contexts and then examining
Introduction: The Sceptre and the Spectre
Ghiţa Ionescu and Ernest Gellner (1969: 1) began their classic edited collection on populism by paraphrasing Marx and Engel’s famous opening line: ‘A Spectre is haunting the world — populism’. However, it was not quite the entire world that was being haunted in the late 1960s. Looking through the case studies in Ionescu and Gellner’s book, we find chapters on North America, Latin America, Russia, Eastern Europe and Africa, but nothing on that par…
Addressing ‘the People’: A Comparative Study of the Lega Nord's and Lega dei Ticinesi's Political Rhetoric and Styles of Propaganda
In recent years two populist regionalist parties have emerged in the alpine region, the Lega dei Ticinesi (LDT) in Switzerland and the Lega Nord (LN) in Italy. However, while typical populist themes such as the constant attacks against professional politicians and appeals to the ‘people’ resonate in the rhetoric of both movements, what differentiates them is the style of their propaganda, as the LDT's paper, Il Mattino della Domenica, constantly …
Back to our roots’ or self-confessed manipulation? The uses of the past in the Lega Nord's positing of Padania
The Italian populist movement Lega Nord once famously claimed that the north of Italy was a nation (‘Padania’) that should be granted independence. Padania was posited by the party through a combination of outrageous anti-Italian statements, gatherings in places of historic and symbolic significance and through the selective appropriation of the past. This article takes this new ‘nation’ as a case study through which to further our understanding …
The Lega dei Ticinesi: The Embodiment of Populism
This article views ‘populism’ as an ideology, the key features of which are identified and briefly discussed. Having assessed the extent to which such features match the profile of the Swiss Lega dei Ticinesi, the author concludes that this party should be seen as a paradigmatic embodiment of populism due to: a) the party's uneasiness with representative democracy; b) the crucial role played by the concept of the ‘people’ in its propaganda; c) th…
The Lega Nord in the second Berlusconi government: In a league of its own
For regionalist populists like the Lega Nord, participation in coalition at national level requires striking a delicate balance between being a party of government and a movement of opposition. The key to this is choosing the right 'friends' and 'enemies' within government. In contrast to its previous time in power in 1994, in the second Berlusconi government (2001-05) the Lega cast itself as the Forza Italia leader's most faithful ally, while be…
Introduction: Enough Vaccine? The Berlusconi Years
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Discursive Strategies around 'Community' in Political Propaganda: The Case of Lega Nord
In a political context where the concept of 'community' seems to be enjoying a striking come back it is necessary to investigate the prevalence of such a term in political discourse. What has made the notion of 'community' a favourite in political rhetoric? More importantly, it is indispensable to question the validity of such a concept in political propaganda. Such an interrogation partly relies on the simple question: What is meant by 'communit…
No regionalism please, we are Leghisti !’ The transformation of the Italian Lega Nord under the leadership of Matteo Salvini
Whilst the Lega Nord has traditionally been defined as a regionalist populist party, since Matteo Salvini became its leader in 2013 it has undergone a process of profound ideological transformation. This article assesses this momentous change and the impact it could have on the future of the Lega, drawing on a content analysis of Salvini’s and the party’s Facebook posts, as well as interviews with regional leaders. It argues that, under Salvini’s…
Populism and Liberal Democracy: Populists in Government in Austria, Italy, Poland and Switzerland
The enduring electoral success of populist parties across Europe and the increasing opportunities they have gained to access government in recent years bring once more into relief the question of whether populism and democracy are fully compatible. In this article we show how, despite playing different roles in government within very different political systems, and despite the numerous constraints placed upon them (for instance, EU membership, i…
The Lega Nord in the second Berlusconi government: In a league of its own
For regionalist populists like the Lega Nord, participation in coalition at national level requires striking a delicate balance between being a party of government and a movement of opposition. The key to this is choosing the right 'friends' and 'enemies' within government. In contrast to its previous time in power in 1994, in the second Berlusconi government (2001-05) the Lega cast itself as the Forza Italia leader's most faithful ally, while be…
The Lega Nord Back in Government
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…
Di lotta e di governo: The Lega Nord and Rifondazione Comunista in office
Since 1994, Italian politics has seen a number of coalitions including parties whose identity has been strongly based on their ‘outsider’ status as uncompromising opposition movements which would not previously consider government participation. This article examines the contrasting experiences in office of two such parties: the regionalist populist Lega Nord (LN) and the radical left Rifondazione Comunista (RC). While the Lega confounded expecta…
Reconciling ‘Voice’ and ‘Exit: Swiss and Italian Populists in Power
This article focuses on the strategic communication of four populist parties which have served in national and/or sub-national governments during the last two decades: the Lega Nord (LN) and Forza Italia (FI) in Italy, as well as the Lega dei Ticinesi (LDT) and the Schweizerische Volkspartei/Union Démocratique du Centre (SVP/UDC) in Switzerland. The analysis identifies two strategies which have been adopted by these parties (i.e. the ‘opposition …
The ‘mainstream’ in contemporary Europe: A Bi-Dimensional and Operationalisable Conceptualisation
The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it offers a new definition of ‘mainstream’. Moving beyond understandings of the concept that focus exclusively on parties’ alternation in power, or their ideology/message, the article’s conceptualisation considers both supply and demand sides of politics. Hence, an attitudinal component to functional definitions is added. This implies that, to be called ‘mainstream’, certain attitudes must be shared by…
The Lega dei Ticinesi: The Embodiment of Populism
This article views ‘populism’ as an ideology, the key features of which are identified and briefly discussed. Having assessed the extent to which such features match the profile of the Swiss Lega dei Ticinesi, the author concludes that this party should be seen as a paradigmatic embodiment of populism due to: a) the party's uneasiness with representative democracy; b) the crucial role played by the concept of the ‘people’ in its propaganda; c) th…
Populist electoral competition in Italy: The impact of sub-national contextual factors
This article investigates the impact of sub-national contextual variations on the performance of populist actors in a country in which several electorally relevant populist parties exist: Italy. By employing a multi-model Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the 2018 Italian general election, it explores the extent to which factors such as the distribution of ‘economic losers’ and the impact of migration, political discontent and societal ma…
Right-Wing Populist Party Organisation Across Europe: The Survival of the Mass-Party? Conclusion to the Thematic Issue
This article provides a comparative conclusion to the thematic issue on the organisational characteristics of 12 right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) across Europe. We observe that many RWPPs—at least partially—adopt features of the mass party model. This finding illustrates the ideological aspects behind organisational choices: For populist parties, in particular, it is important to signal societal rootedness and “closeness to the people.” It fur…
Beyond anger: The populist radical right on TikTok
The video streaming app TikTok is increasingly deployed by political actors to reach younger voters, and this includes populist radical right (PRR) parties. In this study, our expectation is that longstanding PRR parties will be more likely than new PRR challengers to try to de-demonise their image as they land on the platform, in order to counteract years of negative coverage. To test this argument, we use a novel theoretical framework that capt…
The right-wing alliance at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic: All change
The growth of populist radical right parties at the expense of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) has recently reconfigured the right in Italy. Changes in power relations created for the Lega (League), Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI) and FI, different competitive pressures, resulting in distinctive–and often conflicting–responses to the pandemic. Based on the analysis of these parties’ Twitter accounts and on survey data, this article exam…
Right-Wing Populist Party Organisation Across Europe: The Survival of the Mass-Party? Introduction to the Thematic Issue
This thematic issue assesses the organisational forms of a broad range of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) across Europe (12 in total). It interrogates received wisdom about the supposed leader-centeredness of such parties and investigates, in particular, the extent to which the mass party, as an organisational model, remains popular among RWPPs. This introduction presents the aims, research questions, and analytical framework of the issue and…
Why do party elites incentivise activism? The case of the populist radical right
Partisan dealignment in Western Europe has gone hand in hand with the decline of electoral participation and active membership in political parties. Yet political participation and activism are not necessarily a thing of the past, and scholars have for instance observed these characteristics in several contemporary populist radical right parties (PRRPs). Drawing on the analysis of 124 interviews with party representatives from four European PRRPs…
Back to our roots’ or self-confessed manipulation? The uses of the past in the Lega Nord's positing of Padania
The Italian populist movement Lega Nord once famously claimed that the north of Italy was a nation (‘Padania’) that should be granted independence. Padania was posited by the party through a combination of outrageous anti-Italian statements, gatherings in places of historic and symbolic significance and through the selective appropriation of the past. This article takes this new ‘nation’ as a case study through which to further our understanding …
Discursive Strategies around 'Community' in Political Propaganda: The Case of Lega Nord
In a political context where the concept of 'community' seems to be enjoying a striking come back it is necessary to investigate the prevalence of such a term in political discourse. What has made the notion of 'community' a favourite in political rhetoric? More importantly, it is indispensable to question the validity of such a concept in political propaganda. Such an interrogation partly relies on the simple question: What is meant by 'communit…
Introduction: A mountain giving birth to a mouse? On the impact and legacy of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy
Love him or loathe him, Silvio Berlusconi is widely assumed to be Europe's most remarkable politician of recent decades, one who has not only affected the nature of electoral competition or the shape of the party system in Italy, but one who has influenced the country's political agenda to the extent that he himself and his role in politics have for long periods been the most important issues around which party competition has taken place
Surviving the perfect storm: Italy after the 2013 elections
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Amici fragili: The alliance between the Lega Nord and the Popolo della Libertà as seen by their representatives and members
The alliance between the Lega Nord (LN) and Forza Italia (FI), later Popolo della Libertà (PDL), continued, uninterrupted, for over a decade, until November 2011. The problems that beset it under the fourth Berlusconi government are known; however, there is a lack of academic analysis of how such an alliance was seen and experienced by the people who made up the fabric of its constituent organisations. Based on interviews with institutional repre…
Introduction: Enough Vaccine? The Berlusconi Years
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Transition in Italian Politics’, Italian Politics Specialist Group panels held at the Political Studies Association's 52nd Annual Conference, 5–7 April 2002, University of Aberdeen
Despite its hardly enticing title (‘Making Politics Count’) and the equally uninspiring choice of topic for its plenary lecture (‘Political Science After September 11’), the 52nd Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association (PSA), hosted by the University of Aberdeen, was an apparent success: it stimulated interdisciplinar y discussion among an international audience while also providing an arena for the presentation of comparative pers…
Discursive Strategies around 'Community' in Political Propaganda: The Case of Lega Nord
In a political context where the concept of 'community' seems to be enjoying a striking come back it is necessary to investigate the prevalence of such a term in political discourse. What has made the notion of 'community' a favourite in political rhetoric? More importantly, it is indispensable to question the validity of such a concept in political propaganda. Such an interrogation partly relies on the simple question: What is meant by 'communit…
Transition in Italian Politics’, Italian Politics Specialist Group panels held at the Political Studies Association's 52nd Annual Conference, 5–7 April 2002, University of Aberdeen
Despite its hardly enticing title (‘Making Politics Count’) and the equally uninspiring choice of topic for its plenary lecture (‘Political Science After September 11’), the 52nd Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association (PSA), hosted by the University of Aberdeen, was an apparent success: it stimulated interdisciplinar y discussion among an international audience while also providing an arena for the presentation of comparative pers…
Recent studies of the Lega Nord
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Lega Nord in the second Berlusconi government: In a league of its own
For regionalist populists like the Lega Nord, participation in coalition at national level requires striking a delicate balance between being a party of government and a movement of opposition. The key to this is choosing the right 'friends' and 'enemies' within government. In contrast to its previous time in power in 1994, in the second Berlusconi government (2001-05) the Lega cast itself as the Forza Italia leader's most faithful ally, while be…
Introduction: Enough Vaccine? The Berlusconi Years
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Back to our roots’ or self-confessed manipulation? The uses of the past in the Lega Nord's positing of Padania
The Italian populist movement Lega Nord once famously claimed that the north of Italy was a nation (‘Padania’) that should be granted independence. Padania was posited by the party through a combination of outrageous anti-Italian statements, gatherings in places of historic and symbolic significance and through the selective appropriation of the past. This article takes this new ‘nation’ as a case study through which to further our understanding …
The Lega dei Ticinesi: The Embodiment of Populism
This article views ‘populism’ as an ideology, the key features of which are identified and briefly discussed. Having assessed the extent to which such features match the profile of the Swiss Lega dei Ticinesi, the author concludes that this party should be seen as a paradigmatic embodiment of populism due to: a) the party's uneasiness with representative democracy; b) the crucial role played by the concept of the ‘people’ in its propaganda; c) th…
Addressing ‘the People’: A Comparative Study of the Lega Nord's and Lega dei Ticinesi's Political Rhetoric and Styles of Propaganda
In recent years two populist regionalist parties have emerged in the alpine region, the Lega dei Ticinesi (LDT) in Switzerland and the Lega Nord (LN) in Italy. However, while typical populist themes such as the constant attacks against professional politicians and appeals to the ‘people’ resonate in the rhetoric of both movements, what differentiates them is the style of their propaganda, as the LDT's paper, Il Mattino della Domenica, constantly …
Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy
Twenty-First Century Populism analyses the phenomenon of sustained populist growth in Western Europe by looking at the conditions facilitating populism in specific national contexts and then examining
Introduction: The Sceptre and the Spectre
Ghiţa Ionescu and Ernest Gellner (1969: 1) began their classic edited collection on populism by paraphrasing Marx and Engel’s famous opening line: ‘A Spectre is haunting the world — populism’. However, it was not quite the entire world that was being haunted in the late 1960s. Looking through the case studies in Ionescu and Gellner’s book, we find chapters on North America, Latin America, Russia, Eastern Europe and Africa, but nothing on that par…
Reconciling ‘Voice’ and ‘Exit: Swiss and Italian Populists in Power
This article focuses on the strategic communication of four populist parties which have served in national and/or sub-national governments during the last two decades: the Lega Nord (LN) and Forza Italia (FI) in Italy, as well as the Lega dei Ticinesi (LDT) and the Schweizerische Volkspartei/Union Démocratique du Centre (SVP/UDC) in Switzerland. The analysis identifies two strategies which have been adopted by these parties (i.e. the ‘opposition …
The Lega Nord Back in Government
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…
Di lotta e di governo: The Lega Nord and Rifondazione Comunista in office
Since 1994, Italian politics has seen a number of coalitions including parties whose identity has been strongly based on their ‘outsider’ status as uncompromising opposition movements which would not previously consider government participation. This article examines the contrasting experiences in office of two such parties: the regionalist populist Lega Nord (LN) and the radical left Rifondazione Comunista (RC). While the Lega confounded expecta…
Amici fragili: The alliance between the Lega Nord and the Popolo della Libertà as seen by their representatives and members
The alliance between the Lega Nord (LN) and Forza Italia (FI), later Popolo della Libertà (PDL), continued, uninterrupted, for over a decade, until November 2011. The problems that beset it under the fourth Berlusconi government are known; however, there is a lack of academic analysis of how such an alliance was seen and experienced by the people who made up the fabric of its constituent organisations. Based on interviews with institutional repre…
Populism and Liberal Democracy: Populists in Government in Austria, Italy, Poland and Switzerland
The enduring electoral success of populist parties across Europe and the increasing opportunities they have gained to access government in recent years bring once more into relief the question of whether populism and democracy are fully compatible. In this article we show how, despite playing different roles in government within very different political systems, and despite the numerous constraints placed upon them (for instance, EU membership, i…
Populists in Power
The main area of sustained populist growth in recent decades has been Western Europe, where populist parties have not only endured longer than expected, but have increasingly begun to enter government. Focusing on three high-profile cases in Italy and Switzerland – the Popolo della Libertà (PDL), Lega Nord (LN) and Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) – Populists in Power is the first in-depth comparative study to examine whether these parties are in…
Surviving the perfect storm: Italy after the 2013 elections
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Introduction: A mountain giving birth to a mouse? On the impact and legacy of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy
Love him or loathe him, Silvio Berlusconi is widely assumed to be Europe's most remarkable politician of recent decades, one who has not only affected the nature of electoral competition or the shape of the party system in Italy, but one who has influenced the country's political agenda to the extent that he himself and his role in politics have for long periods been the most important issues around which party competition has taken place
Going, going,… not quite gone yet? ‘Bossi’s Lega’ and the survival of the mass party
The scholarly literature has devoted a lot of attention to the declining number of party members in post-industrial societies, arguing that parties now lack the incentives to maintain a large membership. However, some right-wing populist parties have continued to rely on activism by being rooted at the local level and by fostering the creation of closed communities of ideologically committed members. In short, they have adopted the organisational…
No regionalism please, we are Leghisti !’ The transformation of the Italian Lega Nord under the leadership of Matteo Salvini
Whilst the Lega Nord has traditionally been defined as a regionalist populist party, since Matteo Salvini became its leader in 2013 it has undergone a process of profound ideological transformation. This article assesses this momentous change and the impact it could have on the future of the Lega, drawing on a content analysis of Salvini’s and the party’s Facebook posts, as well as interviews with regional leaders. It argues that, under Salvini’s…
The right-wing alliance at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic: All change
The growth of populist radical right parties at the expense of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) has recently reconfigured the right in Italy. Changes in power relations created for the Lega (League), Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI) and FI, different competitive pressures, resulting in distinctive–and often conflicting–responses to the pandemic. Based on the analysis of these parties’ Twitter accounts and on survey data, this article exam…
Populist electoral competition in Italy: The impact of sub-national contextual factors
This article investigates the impact of sub-national contextual variations on the performance of populist actors in a country in which several electorally relevant populist parties exist: Italy. By employing a multi-model Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the 2018 Italian general election, it explores the extent to which factors such as the distribution of ‘economic losers’ and the impact of migration, political discontent and societal ma…
Right-Wing Populist Party Organisation Across Europe: The Survival of the Mass-Party? Introduction to the Thematic Issue
This thematic issue assesses the organisational forms of a broad range of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) across Europe (12 in total). It interrogates received wisdom about the supposed leader-centeredness of such parties and investigates, in particular, the extent to which the mass party, as an organisational model, remains popular among RWPPs. This introduction presents the aims, research questions, and analytical framework of the issue and…
Right-Wing Populist Party Organisation Across Europe: The Survival of the Mass-Party? Conclusion to the Thematic Issue
This article provides a comparative conclusion to the thematic issue on the organisational characteristics of 12 right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) across Europe. We observe that many RWPPs—at least partially—adopt features of the mass party model. This finding illustrates the ideological aspects behind organisational choices: For populist parties, in particular, it is important to signal societal rootedness and “closeness to the people.” It fur…
Beyond anger: The populist radical right on TikTok
The video streaming app TikTok is increasingly deployed by political actors to reach younger voters, and this includes populist radical right (PRR) parties. In this study, our expectation is that longstanding PRR parties will be more likely than new PRR challengers to try to de-demonise their image as they land on the platform, in order to counteract years of negative coverage. To test this argument, we use a novel theoretical framework that capt…
Political science (26 works) · Law (23 works) · Politics (23 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Law (19 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Populism, Right-Wing Movements (17 works) · Public Administration (13 works) · Public Administration (12 works) · Populism (11 works)