Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T20:58:35.762Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Eurosceptic vision in a europhile country: The case of the Lega Nord

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Michel Huysseune
Michel Huysseune*
Affiliation:
Vesalius College/Department of Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
*
∗Email: mjhuysse@vub.ac.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As a consequence of Italy's integration in the EMU in 1998, the Lega Nord shifted from a pro-European to a Eurosceptic position. The Lega's Eurosceptic vision combines a strong identification with Europe with a hostile attitude towards the institutions of the EU. Identification with Europe expresses in the first place the party's geopolitical view of Padania as a European and hence modern and entrepreneurial region. Its critique of the EU incorporates numerous, sometimes contradicting influences such as the neo-liberal vision of a free-trade based Europe with minimal rules and regulations, and a protectionist defence of northern Italian economic interests. It is in particular the party's institutional vision that attributes centrality to the right of Padania to autonomy and self-government which leads to its rejection of the centralism and dirigism of the European Union.

Keywords

Lega NordideologyEuroscepticism
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 63 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albertazzi, D., and McDonnell, D.. 2005. The Lega Nord in the second Berlusconi government. In a league of its own. West European politics 28, no. 5: 952–72.Google Scholar
Bassani, M. 2007. La Catalogna fra globalizzazione economica e globalismo giuridico. Quaderni padani , no. 72: 4–10.Google Scholar
Bontempi, A. 2004. Quale Europa? L'Europa che vogliamo. Quaderni padani , no. 55: 33–34.Google Scholar
Bossi, U. 1995a. Il mio progetto. Discorsi su federalismo e Padania . Milan: Sperling & Kupfer.Google Scholar
Bossi, U. 1995b. Tutta la verità. Perché ho partecipato al governo Berlusconi. Perché l'ho fatto cadere. Dove voglio arrivare . Milan: Sperling & Kupfer.Google Scholar
Bossi, U., and Vimercati, D.. 1992. Vento dal Nord . Milan: Sperling & Kupfer.Google Scholar
Bossi, U., and Vimercati, D.. 1993. La Rivoluzione . Milan: Sperling & Kupfer.Google Scholar
Bossi, U., and Vimercati, D.. 1998. Processo alla Lega . Milan: Sperling & Kupfer.Google Scholar
Bracalini, R. 2004. Da Torino a Bruxelles: l'unità senza cittadini. Quaderni padani , no. 55: 47–9.Google Scholar
Brenno, 2007. Arimortis – Annotazioni sull'autonomismo prossimo venturo. Quaderni padani , no. 74: 1–7.Google Scholar
Busi, L. 2002. Le radici profonde riaffiorano. Quaderni padani , no. 43–4: 11–6.Google Scholar
Busi, L. 2003. Turchia nella UE: un no per l'Europa delle Indipendenze e della Indipendenza. Quaderni padani , no. 45: 8–17.Google Scholar
Castelli, R. 2002. Mentre a Roma si discute, Sagunto cade. Quaderni padani , no. 43–4: 45–7.Google Scholar
Cento Bull, A., and Gilbert, M.. 2001. The Lega Nord and the Northern Question in Italian politics . Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Chari, R.S., Iltanen, S., and Kritzinger, S.. 2004. Examining and explaining the Northern League's ‘U-Turn’ from Europe. Government and Opposition 39, no. 3: 423–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conti, N. 2003. Party attitudes to European integration: A longitudinal analysis of the Italian case . Working Paper No. 70, Sussex European Institute.Google Scholar
Giordano, B. 2004. The politics of the Northern League and Italy's changing attitude towards Europe. Perspectives on European Politics and Society 5, no. 1: 61–79.Google Scholar
Gómez-Reino, M. 2002. Ethnicity and nationalism in Italian politics. Inventing the Padania: Lega Nord and the northern question . Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Gómez-Reino, M. 2006. Conclusion: The future study of autonomist and regionalist parties. In Autonomist parties in Europe: Identity politics and the revival of the territorial cleavage , ed. De Winter, L., Gómez-Reino, M., and Lynch, P., 247–69. Vol. II. Barcelona: Institut de Ciències Politiques i Socials.Google Scholar
Gulisano, P. 2004. Un'altra Europa è possibile. Quaderni padani , no. 55: 35–9.Google Scholar
Huysseune, M. 2006. Modernity and secession: The social sciences and the political discourse of the Lega Nord in Italy . Oxford: Berghahn.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huysseune, M. 2009. Come interpretare l'Altro. Il Mezzogiorno nel discorso della Lega Nord. Meridiana , 63 (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Lewis, R. 2002. The myth of Europe. In The Euroscepticism reader 2 , ed. Holmes, M., 151–70. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Locatelli, R. 2002. N-Eurolandia, ovvero la nuova URSS. Quaderni padani , no. 43–4: 72–4.Google Scholar
Lottieri, C. 2002. Le radici cristiane dell'Europa e la necessità di opporsi all'unificazione del continente. Quaderni padani , no. 43–4: 2–5.Google Scholar
Lottieri, C. 2004. I disastri economici dell'unificazione dal nazionalismo ottocentesco all'europeismo contemporaneo. Quaderni padani , no. 55: 40–6.Google Scholar
Oneto, G. 1997. L'invenzione della Padania. La rinascità della comunità più antica d'Europa . Bergamo: Foedus Editore.Google Scholar
Oneto, G. 2002. Quale Europa. Quaderni padani , no. 43–4: 48–56.Google Scholar
Oneto, G. 2004. Nessun nemico. Nessun onore. L'ostentata unanimità delle oppressioni. Quaderni padani , no. 55: 53–56.Google Scholar
Oneto, G., and Pagliarini, G.. 2005. 50 buone ragioni per l'indipendenza. Quaderni padani no. 61–2: 3–43 (Orig. pub. 1998).Google Scholar
Pagliarini, G. 1996. Le ragioni della Lega. Chiodi di nuvole 6, no. 3: 35–48.Google Scholar
Pagliarini, G. 2002. L'Europa dei popoli e i suoi nemici. Quaderni padani , no. 43–4: 27–30.Google Scholar
Ruzza, C. 2006. The Lega Nord: Towards electoral stability and modest success. In Autonomist parties in Europe: Identity politics and the revival of the territorial cleavage , ed. De Winter, L., Gómez-Reino, M., and Lynch, P., 219–46. Vol. II. Barcelona: Institut de Ciències Politiques i Socials.Google Scholar
Spektorowski, A. 2003. Ethnoregionalism: The intellectual New Right and the Lega Nord. Global Review of Ethnopolitics 2, no. 3: 55–70. http://www.ethnopolitics.org/ethnopolitics/archive/volume_II/issue_3–4/spektorowski.pdf (accessed May 7, 2008).Google Scholar
Stagnaro, C. 2002. Quell'Europa così no-global. Quaderni padani , no. 43–4: 81–8.Google Scholar
Stråth, B. 2000. Multiple Europes: integration, identity and demarcation to the Other. In Europe and the other and Europe as the other , ed. Stråth, B., 385–420. Brussels–Berlin: P.I.E.–Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Stucchi, G. 2003. L'Europa che vogliamo. Quaderni padani , no. 45: 30–1.Google Scholar
Szczerbiak, A., and Taggart, P.. 2003. Theorising party-based Euroscepticism: Problems of definition, measurement and causality. Working Paper no. 69, Sussex European Institute.Google Scholar
Tambini, D. 2001. Nationalism in Italian politics: The stories of the Northern League, 1980–2000 . London: Routledge.Google Scholar
UNDP 2005. International cooperation at a crossroads: Aid, trade and security in an unequal world . Human Development Report. New York: United Nations Development Programme.Google Scholar
Vitale, A. 1997. La Padania e i nuovi Paesi dell'Est: il caso dei rapporti con la Croazia. Quaderni padani , no. 9: 22–6.Google Scholar
Vitale, A. 1998. La Padania e i nuovi Paesi dell'Est (2) – L'emergere della Slovenia. Quaderni padani , no. 16: 28–31.Google Scholar
Zemni, S. 2002. Islam, European identity and the limits of multiculturalism. In Religious freedom and the neutrality of the state: The position of Islam in the European Union , ed. Shadid, W.A.R., and van Koningsveld, P.Sj., 158–73. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar