8. Imagined Geographies: Political and Scientific Discourses on Italy's North-South Divide (original) (raw)
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Imagined Geographies : Political and Scientific Discourses on Italy ’ s North-South Divide
2002
As a secessionist movement, the Lega Nord, which promotes the formation of an independent northern Italian state named ‘Padania’, distinguishes itself by its professed anti-intellectualism. Its clearly populist discourse – Umberto Bossi, the Lega’s leader, describes it as popolano, folksy – is scorned by the Italian intellectual community, which is generally hostile to the Lega. But together with its populist rhetoric the Lega has developed a framework for argument based on research in the social sciences. The highbrow version of the Lega’s discourse focuses on several issues that are considered relevant within the mainstream Italian intellectual debate, such as the crisis of the Italian state, the process of European integration, and Italy’s place in this process. The Lega legitimizes the secession of northern Italy by referring on the one hand to the inadequacy of the Italian state and the weakness of Italian national identity, and on the other to the territorial dimension of this...
2021
Italy's Lega Nord is one of the most notorious radical right-wing parties in Europe. It was founded in 1991 as a movement that represented the interests of the country's northern regions which were collectively labelled as 'Padania' in their political platform. Under the leadership of Umberto Bossi (1991-2012) it participated in coalition governments with Silvio Berlusconi and continually advocated for federalism and sometimes independence for the North of Italy. The Northern League's success was largely due to its opposition towards what they regarded as the 'Other' i.e. southern Italians, immigrants and the EU. In 2013, Matteo Salvini became the party's leader and began changing its strategy. It stopped being hostile to southern Italians and rebranded itself as the Lega, but its anti-migrant and anti-EU discourses have remained intact and have been amplified by Salvini's shrewd use of social media. This article aims to explain why the League wanted to confront their main enemies and how they were represented in its discourse. It will start with a description of the party's evolution between 1991 and 2013 that will be followed by an examination of the Lega's position on 'Padanian' identity, southern Italians, foreign migrants, and European integration during this period. Afterwards, an account of how the League has changed under Salvini will be provided, before finishing with an analysis of his treatment of immigrants and the EU and his social media approach. The source material for this article includes books, edited chapters, journals and online articles written in English and Italian.
Geojournal, 1999
The nineties will go down in Italian history as the decade of great political change. By way of emphasising this change, the media and politicians use the expressions 'Prima Repubblica' and 'Seconda Repubblica' (first and second republics), adopting the terminology used by the French for their 'republics'. During the so-called First Republic (1948Republic ( -1994, the centrist Christian Democrat Party represented the moderate political force in every government. However, the corruption trials of 1992-1993, which involved many of this party's members, led to its collapse at the ballot box. In northern Italy, a consequence of the demise of the Christian Democrats was the resounding success of the Lega Nord at the local government elections of 1993 and the general election of 1994. The Lega Nord based, and continues to base, its success on the use of ethno-nationalist slogans and catchcries. Italy has an ancient tradition -dating at least from the fall of the Roman Empireof political and linguistic splintering. Given today's situation, this factor may have impacts at the level of the structure of the state: federalism, special statutes for regions and/or provinces, the decentralization of the state, and so on. For the first time for perhaps more than a century, in this new period of uncertain political change, Italians are increasingly viewing territory and its characteristics as politically relevant. Justifications for 'national' cohesion are being rediscovered, or invented, at the local level, transforming it into political claims. Italians have begun to talk about relationships with territories and neighbouring groups from a different perspective. At present, traditional political parties and politicians are too slow and insufficiently focused in their response to the rising call for autonomy and decision-making authority at the local level. This factor has provided the time and space for isolationist and culturally self-reliant localist ideologies to propagate. It is impossible to say how long this period of transition will last and what its outcomes will be. The three main choices now facing Italians would be appear to be: (1) reclaim the nationalist sentiment of a united state (abandoned after the Fascist era);
The contrasting geographies of ‘Padania’: the case of the Lega Nord in Northern Italy
Area, 2001
The Lega Nord (Northern League) regionalist party, which has risen to prominence in Italy in recent years, has a specific geographical focus to its political project. This is premised essentially upon the protection of Northern Italian economic (and cultural) interests, however, this geographical focus has been modified during the Lega Nord's relatively short political history. This paper explores the reasons why there have been various shifts in geographical emphasis in the party's political rhetoric as well as the ways in which support for the Lega Nord has changed (or not) as a result of these changes. Interestingly, the latest shift in the Lega Nord's rhetoric has seen the party attempting to construct (and invent) a geography and an ethnicity for a place it calls 'Padania' (which roughly corresponds to North and Central Italy) that has never existed administratively or historically. However, as the paper argues, the Lega Nord's attempts to create a 'Padanian' political identity, have not been matched by any significant changes in its electoral geography.
Political Geography, 2000
The resurgence of regionalist political parties has had a considerable, though variable, impact on contemporary European politics in recent decades and there are numerous examples of such parties across Europe. In Italy, there are several regionalist parties, however, it is the emergence in the last 15 years or so, of the Northern League (Lega Nord) (LN) political party, in the North of Italy, which has given a new impetus to debates about the significance of regionalism in Italy as well as across Europe. This paper discusses the different approaches to defining regionalism as well as the common features and driving forces of contemporary political regionalist projects. It then focuses upon the political discourses of the LN in order to discuss the ways in which the party resembles other regionalist projects, while having certain key, distinct and rather unique differences. This is because the LN's political project is not based in an area that has historic claims to nationhood. Instead, the LN has attempted to invent an ethnicity for the North of Italy (or 'Padania') in order to justify its political claims for the protection of the economic interests of the region. 'Padania' (which is the Latin term which refers to the basin of the River Po), has never 'existed' as an administrative or political unit but the LN has attempted to construct (and invent) a geography and a history in order to justify its territorial and political claims.
Visions of Italy Beyond the North/South Divide: Regional Documentaries, Global Identities.
Annali d’Italianistica , 2006
The “Southern Question,” “Padania,” and their Discontents Ever since its inception, the Italian nation has struggled to provide an integrated image of itself and its culture to its own citizens and to the rest of the world. This was the case after Unification as much as it was in the postwar period (Ascoli and Von Henneberg; Bouchard). In the present age of postmodern globalization, national unity continues to be subject to debate. Placed at the core of a variety of cultural practices, it also informs a recent set of documentary films about Emilia-Romagna and the Po Valley whose subject-matter and formal narrative structures intervene directly in the ongoing struggle to define the local, national and global nature of Italian identity. Indeed, documentaries, such as Gianni Celati’s Visioni di case che crollano (2003), Davide Ferrario’s Mondonuovo (2003), Giuseppe Bertolucci’s Segni particolari: appunti per un film sull’Emilia-Romagna (2003), and Nello Ferrieri and Raffaele Rago’s Mozambico dove va il cinema (2002), point to an unresolved crisis of postmodernity in Italian society and subvert a notion of identity based on territorial belonging. At the same time, these documentaries suggest a relational understanding of subject- and community-formation constructed through the encounter and negotiation with other cultures within and outside Italy. They do so by underscoring a number of elements that shed new light on the construction of Italy and Italians since the postwar period with respect to the country’s internal national divides (exemplified by the “Southern Question,” on the one hand, and by the separatist attacks of the Northern League, on the other hand) and in relation to the challenges put forth by the phenomenon of global migration which is forcing an expansion of cultural boundaries and a reflection on the foundations of local histories.