A Place Called Padania?

Abstract

In the 1990s, the debates about the resurgence of political regionalism in Europe have become particularly prevalent. One reason for this has been the fact that, in several European countries, regionalist political parties have made significant electoral gains in recent years. This paper focuses upon Italy, which is one of the countries in which there has been a significant resurgence of regionalism over the last ten years or so. Political regionalism is not a new phenomenon in Italy and there have been a number of examples of regionalist political parties during the history of the Italian Republic. However, it is the rise to political prominence of the Northern League (Lega Nord) (LN) political party in Italian politics which has brought to the fore questions about Italian national unity and identity. The party has articulated a new and politically more contentious ‘Northern question’, which is superimposed upon the longstanding ‘Southern question’ in Italy. The fundamental political aim of the LN is the protection of Northern Italian economic and cultural interests and in order to do this the party proposed the creation of a federal Italian state, which would give greater autonomy to the North of Italy. More recently, however, the party has rejected its federalist rhetoric in favour of the hard-line discourse of secession of a place it calls ‘Padania’ (which roughly corresponds to Northern and Central Italy). The party claims to represent the whole of the ‘Padanian nation’, but the geography of the party’s support is not uniform across the whole of the territory. This paper explores the ways in which the LN has communicated its main political discourses and then considers the reasons why these discourses have generated differing levels of support in three contrasting geographical contexts across Northern and Central Italy.