and holds an MA in Contemporary Italian Culture and History from UCL. His doctoral research reconceptualizes the roots of the Lega Nord in the light of 1950s' regionalist movements in Lombardy and Piedmont. He has previously published A brief comparative history of economic regionalism in the North Italian macro-region and Catalonia (Rivista Progressus -Università di Siena. 2014), The Movimento Autonomista Bergamasco and the Lega Nord (Modern Italy. 2018) and also collaborates with 'The Conversation' and 'Novara Media'.

Recent literature on the centre–periphery debate in European politics has produced a wide range of composite paradigms of regionalism, nationalism, and populism and nativism. A number of these definitions, however, tend to overemphasise the importance of populism by either framing it as a core ideology or by conflating it with the nationalism or regionalism of a specific party. This article makes three innovative contributions to populist studies by sustaining an ideational approach to populism and its combination with regionalist and nationalist ideologies. First, the article addresses the varied and at times conflicting composite paradigms of regionalism, nationalism, and populism by proposing a minimalist ‘populist regionalist’ and ‘populist nationalist’ conceptual framework; this places the emphasis on the type of nationalism and regionalism (left- or right-wing, civic or ethnic) to which populism and (potentially) nativism are attached. Second, by emphasising a clear distinction between populism and nativism, the article adds to a growing field of literature which aims to address the problem of ‘populist hype’. Finally, the contribution of a brief comparative case study illustrates how populism represents a key link between nationalists and regionalists ranging from the far-left to the far-right which are otherwise separated by nativism.

Existing ideational approaches to nativism tend to conflate the concept with nationalism, xenophobia and populism, as well as overlooking the role of racism and racialisation in the process of constructing the non-native 'out-group', against the native 'in-group'. Inspired by the Discourse Theoretical approach to populism, this article offers a significant conceptual contribution to studies on the far right by interpreting nativism as a racist and xenophobic discourse structured around an exclusionary vision of the nation. This conceptualisation helps identify how xenophobia, nationalism, racism and racialisation all contribute to nativist discourse, how nativism can be clearly demarcated from populism, and how nativist arguments can be articulated by parties beyond the far right.

Studies of the Lega Nord (Northern League) have tended either to ignore the existence of earlier movements for regional autonomy in the 1950s – such as the Movimento Autonomista Bergamasco – or, on the contrary, assume continuities between the two movements at the expense of analysis of the significant discontinuities. This article argues that neither approach has been successful in capturing the importance of precursors to leghismo and that a more nuanced analysis is required. Focusing on the Movimento Autonomista Bergamasco (MAB) in its various incarnations between 1947 and 1970, I argue that the Bergamascan autonomists of the post-war period in many ways laid the foundations for Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord; however, it is historically inaccurate to claim a direct line of continuity between mabismo and leghismo due to the differing contexts in which each movement operated: the critical junctures of the post-war era and post-tangentopoli respectively. What emerges from a closer analysis of the relationship between the two movements, as mabismo evolved into leghismo in the 1980s is a picture of regional autonomism distancing itself from the ideal of national unity and being increasingly drawn to secessionism.

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