A Weekend in Padania: Regionalist Populism and the Lega Nord
| Author | Duncan McDonnell |
| Published date | 01 May 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.2006.00259.x |
| Date | 01 May 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Special Section: Alpine Populism |
Special Section: Alpine Populism
A Weekend in Padania: Regionalist
Populism and the Lega Nord
Duncan McDonnell
University of York
This article argues that the Lega Nord is best understood, first and foremost, as a regionalist
populist party. Following a brief discussion of the importance of the territorial reference in explain-
ing the Lega, the article examines its populist discourse using material from the party’s newspaper
La Padania over the three days in June 2005 around the annual Lega rally in Pontida.
Introduction
Like the Lega dei Ticinesi (LDT) (examined by Daniele Albertazzi in this issue), the
Lega Nord (Northern League) in Italy has built its success over the last 20 years on
a regionalist populist critique of the state and its political class. As Cas Mudde has
discussed, however, there is a descriptive and interpretative babel around what he
classifies as ‘the extreme right party family’ and the Lega Nord has been variously
defined and categorised (Mudde, 1996). For example, the Lega is included by
Andrej Zaslove in his list of ‘radical right’ parties (Zaslove, 2004), by Jens Rydgren
among the ‘extreme right-wing populists’ (Rydgren, 2005) and by Alfio Mas-
tropaolo among the many ‘antipolitical’ new forces on the right (Mastropaolo,
2005). Most recently, Pippa Norris acknowledges the ambiguity of the Lega Nord,
but nonetheless deals with both it and the Lega dei Ticinesi (LDT) under the
umbrella term of ‘radical right’ (Norris, 2005).
There is not the space here for a lengthy discussion of definitional problems and
solutions, so I will adopt the recent approach of Anthony J. McGann and Herbert
Kitschelt who, in considering the Freiheitspartei Österreichs (FPÖ, Austrian
Freedom party) and Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP, Swiss People’s party) focus
on ‘whether various concepts are descriptively useful’ and conclude that ‘new
radical-right’ suits those parties best (McGann and Kitschelt, 2005, p. 148). Fol-
lowing that logic, I believe that the most descriptively useful term for the Lega
remains that of ‘regionalist populist’, as used by Roberto Biorcio (1991). Simply
put, it is impossible to understand and explain the Lega from its foundation to the
present day without explicitly highlighting the party’s ‘regionalist’ character. The
Lega Nord arose in a specific political and socio-economic environment and its elab-
oration of themes is still developed, first and foremost, with reference to the ter-
ritorial context of its heartland (Cento Bull and Gilbert, 2001). The party frames
the problems of the north as a centre-periphery question within a ‘people’ v. ‘the
elite’ populist discourse. The ‘radical right’ label and the others listed above thus
POLITICS: 2006 VOL 26(2), 126–132
© 2006 The Author. Journal compilation © 2006 Political Studies Association
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