Davide Vampa

The 2015 Regional Election in Italy: Fragmentation and Crisis of Subnational Representative Democracy

Abstract In May 2015, voters in seven Italian regions went to the polls to elect new regional councils and governments. The final election result was apparently similar to that of 2010: centre-left coalitions won in five out of seven regions, as in the previous election, leaving the remaining two to the centre-right. Yet behind this picture of stability, dramatic changes have occurred in the internal composition of regional coalitions, cross-party equilibriums and levels of participation. Generally, regional party-based democracy seems to be experiencing increasing fragmentation and a crisis of representation and legitimacy.

The Italian Lega Nord

The Lega Nord (LN ) [Northern League] in 2015 is the oldest party group in the Italian Parliament. While this statistic reflects the highly turbulent nature of Italian politics over the past three decades, it also underlines the resilience of a party whose roots lie in a series of regionalist movements that emerged across northern Italy in the 1980s. These were later merged in 1991 into the LN under Umberto Bossi, who led the party until April 2012.

The Sub-State Politics of Welfare in Italy: Assessing the Effect of Territorial Mobilization on the Development of Region-Specific Social Governance

Abstract This article demonstrates that the political mobilization of regional identities through the creation of regionalist parties has positively impacted on the development of region-specific models of welfare governance in Italy. This means that, in a decentralized country, the ‘centre-periphery’ cleavage may significantly influence the sub-state politics of welfare.

Declining partisan representation at the sub-national level: assessing and explaining the strengthening of local lists in Italian municipalities (1995–2014)

ABSTRACT In Western democracies political representation at the national level is still dominated by (old and new) political parties. This article shows that, instead, the representative role of parties may have declined at the local level. In Italy, for instance, the average share of municipal seats held by non-partisan councillors has almost tripled in the last 20 years. By using an original data set, this article classifies different types of Italian local lists, assesses their relationship with traditional parties and explains territorial variation in their success. The results suggest that local lists have become substantially stronger in small municipalities, in regions characterised by weak or declining political subcultures and where regionalist parties are absent or irrelevant. Finally, contrary to the expectation that declining partisanship is linked to modernisation processes and direct civic engagement, local lists have achieved their best results in the less developed areas of the country.

From National to Sub-National? Exploring the Territorial Dimension of Social Assistance in Italy

In countries that have experienced decentralisation processes, the role that central and sub-national authorities play in the governance of some social policies may vary considerably across regions. In Italy, for instance, whereas some regions (and municipalities) have been very active in financing social assistance programmes, others still overwhelmingly rely on resources directly allocated by the central government. This indicates that, in a ‘regionalised’ system, the development of a sub-national social dimension is not a territorially homogeneous phenomenon. Interestingly, cross-regional variation is mainly explained by differences in the strength of regionalist parties. The share of total social assistance spending allocated by sub-national authorities has increased significantly in those areas of the country where regionalist parties are stronger and does not seem to depend on ideological shifts on the left-right spectrum. Surprisingly, the positive effect of regional economic development on sub-national spending is not as strong as expected. On the other hand, female employment and population ageing seem to explain part of territorial divergence, the former having a positive effect and the latter a negative one on the dependent variable.

Local representative democracy and protest politics: the case of the Five-star Movement

In recent years, protest politics has become a relevant phenomenon in various European countries. Italy has witnessed the rise of the Five-star Movement (M5S), an anti-establishment party, which, at the 2013 general election, obtained one-fourth of the total votes. However, the story of this ‘party-movement’ started at the local level, as a civic network aimed at changing administrative practices in municipal government. By using an original dataset on representation in 671 Italian municipalities from 2010 to 2014, this article aims to explain not only the subnational political success of the M5S but also the challenges and contradictions that a newly formed movement faces in multi-level electoral arenas.

The (Re)emergence and Strengthening of the Centre-Periphery Cleavage in Italy: (Old and New) Regionalist Parties and Sub-state Welfare Building

This qualitative chapter focuses on the cases of South Tyrol and Lombardy and shows that territorial mobilisation has played a very important role in the process of regional welfare building in both regions. The qualitative analysis also highlights the shortcomings of welfare classifications that take the nation-state as the only level of analysis. Indeed, both South Tyrol and Lombardy show characteristics that cannot be found in the general description of Italy as a Southern European welfare model. Indeed, the latter is characterised by low generosity and coverage of benefits, high fragmentation, low development of social services and familism. The ‘Alpine model’ of South Tyrol, on the other hand, is very generous, highly integrated, and supportive of families though a well-developed system of benefits and services. The Lombard model is also very peculiar, since it has promoted important forms of horizontal subsidiarity between public and private sectors and has stressed the importance of individual citizens’ freedom of choice.

Spain: Finding a Balance Between Territorial Equality and Strong Regional Identities

This preliminary quantitative analysis provides some evidence of the role played by regionalist and left-wing parties in the development of region-specific models of welfare in Spain. It is shown that territorial mobilisation has had an important positive effect on regional welfare building. Such effect has been both direct and indirect. Indeed, given the moderate flexibility of constitutional arrangements in Spain, regions characterised by high levels of territorial mobilisation have had the chance to obtain special autonomy by participating in bilateral bargaining with central authorities. However, the latter have also tried to promote processes of ‘re-symmetrisation’ by also empowering ‘ordinary’ regions. In this context the ‘direct’ positive effect of territorial mobilisation, holding institutional asymmetries constant, has also been important in regional welfare politics. On the other hand, the Left, and particularly its main party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE), does not seem to have encouraged the development of regional welfare policies that are ‘disconnected’ from central control and coordination.

Ethno-regionalist Parties in Spain: Linking Regional Welfare Governance to ‘Sub-state’ Nation-Building

This chapter shows that both Catalonia and the Basque Country have established strong and distinctive welfare models, which substantially diverge from the residual and familistic model that characterises other Spanish regions. Additionally, this chapter has demonstrated that the Catalan model is also qualitatively different from the Basque one. Whereas the latter is mainly based on the direct action of the public sector and the involvement of social partners in social governance, the former is more ‘market-oriented’ and based on competition, private initiative and freedom of choice. These qualitative differences are mainly due to the fact that the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) have been part of distinctive ‘policy communities’ and have established different types of regional coalitions with social and political actors. At the same time, it should be highlighted that the Basque model has also benefited from an ‘institutional’ advantage—its fiscal autonomy—which, particularly in an era of austerity, has resulted in a more generous and resilient welfare system than the Catalan (and Spanish) one.

Adding a Territorial Perspective to the Study of Welfare Politics: Theories, Hypotheses and Case Studies

This chapter presents the general theoretical framework of the book. Welfare development is conceptualised and operationalised by referring to three dimensions: spending, legislation and implementation. The two main independent variables—territorial mobilisation and left-wing mobilisation—are discussed and hypotheses on their links with regional welfare development are provided. Territorial mobilisation is expected to have favoured the development of sub-state welfare systems. On the other hand, the impact of left-wing mobilisation on the level of regional welfare development will be conditional on the role that centre-left parties play in central government and on the challenges posed by regionalist parties. The chapter also includes a section on case selection, which is followed by a brief methodological note stressing the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative analyses.