Lega Nord, so how does that work then?

[Levin]

Can anyone explain the Lega Nord to me?

From the outside Italy would appear ripe for the same sort of campaigns for regional autonomy as Spain, France and the UK. Italy as a state has an even shorter history than Spain, and the constituent parts of Italy have traditionally been soverign states.

So why then is the only movement that I've heard of in the news one that wants to make up it's own country?

Or are there Venetian/Piedmont Nationalist Parties? And if there are why haven't they got more attention abroad?

[ursus arctos]

Lega Nord, so how does that work then?

Gee, where to start?

Italy already has a significant degree of regional autonomy. The Valle d'Aosta (which has a significant French speaking population) and Suedtirol/Alto Adige (which is majority German speaking) are autonomous regions not terribly dissimilar to their Spanish counterparts. The "regions" also have significant budgets, though these are unfortuately plagued with patronage in too many cases.

There are separatist parties in both Suedtirol and the Valle d'Aosta, but they aren't very popular (though the Sudetirol is more popular than the VdA one).

The Lega is in many ways a cult of personality around Umberto Bossi, as well as serving as a "respectable" repository for the hard right and racist muppets who plague the Veneto in significant numbers. It's national prominence is largely due to Berlusconi's having found them to be useful coalition partners when it comes to winning national majorities, though he is finding it increasingly difficult to actually govern with them (especially when they insist on actually trying to implement some of their platform).

[ursus arctos]

Lega Nord, so how does that work then?

You might also be interested in the Italian Politics thread and the 2008 Election thread from the old board.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Lega Nord, so how does that work then?

are there Venetian/Piedmont Nationalist Parties?

Er, yes, they're called the "Lega Nord". Veneto, Lombardy, Friuli and Piedmont are precisely where most of their support lies.

They're the kingmakers in Italian elections - if Lega Nord weren't on Berlusconi's side, he wouldn't be Prime Minister, his majority depends entirely on their 60 Deputies. However, they don't particularly seem to have a right wing ideology (or indeed any unifying ideology other than a mistrust of Rome, the South, and "Italy"), they're just pragmatic about who they align with at any given election. Despite their current siding with Berlusconi, when he gave them what they wanted in 2006 - a referendum on greater autonomy from the state, that stopped just short of federalism - it was still voted down by the public.

[ursus arctos]

Lega Nord, so how does that work then?

Not so much in Piedmont, and not in Milano or Venezia. Their heartland is the Veneto and non-Milan Lombardy.

It's an open question as to whether any Italian political party can be said to really have a "unifying ideology".

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Lega Nord, so how does that work then?

That's very true, and one of the fascinations of Italian politics for me. Is the "populist" nature of Italian politics a function of the Italian people, their history of following (and desiring) great leaders stretching back to the Caesars; or is it because Italian politics only really emerged, following monarchy and dictatorships, into a post-war era where, already, the "traditional" left-right divide had no true grounding, in the way that Labour and the Tories, for example, still (at least in pretense) "ground" themselves in the benefits created by capitalist wealth expansion and unionised labour movements from half a century before?