Geographies of Discontent: Public Service Deprivation and the Rise of the Far Right in Italy

Abstract

Electoral support for far-right parties is often linked to specific geographies of discontent. We argue that public service deprivation, defined as poor access to public services at the local level, helps explain these patterns in far-right support. Public service deprivation increases the appeal of far-right parties by making people more worried about immigration and increased competition for reduced public services. We examine our argument using three studies from Italy, a country home to some of the most electorally successful far-right parties in the past decades. We examine cross-sectional data from municipalities (study 1), exploit a national reform forcing municipalities below a certain population threshold to jointly share local public services (study 2), and explore geo-coded individual-level election survey data (study 3). Our findings suggest that public service deprivation helps us better understand geographical differences in far-right support and the mechanisms underlying it.

Emigration and Radical Right Populism

“…This research has focused on the disruptions caused by immigration, but aside from a few contributions (Anelli and Peri, 2017;Lim, 2022;Patana, 2021) it has neglected the consequences of emigration. Whereas immigration can bolster populist radical right parties through congestion effects and overburdened public services (Cremaschi et al, 2022;Dancygier, 2010;Hooijer, 2021), we show that opposite forces can do the same. The emptying out of regions can produce frustrations of equal importance, with significant political consequences.…”

“…Note that our focus on emigration complements but also differs from accounts linking regional economic transformations -in the form of import competition and deindustrialization, for example (Baccini and Weymouth, 2021;Colantone and Stanig, 2018) -to populism or that connect immigrant-native competition over public services to radical right voting (Cavaillé and Ferwerda, 2022;Cremaschi et al, 2022;Dancygier, 2010). We examine the effects of local departures on PRR parties net of unemployment, income inequality, and immigration, and we additionally investigate how compositional changes in electorates and grievances these shifts unleash contribute to the success of these parties.…”

Performative State Capacity and Climate (In)Action

“…This paper contributes to an emerging literature that traces the effects of austerity on public service delivery (Cremaschi et al, 2022;Fremerey et al, 2022), with broad-based austerity having been shown to lead to more (hate) crimes (Bray et al, 2022;Facchetti, 2021), increased housing insecurity and homelessness (Fetzer et al, 2023), and a decrease in the quality of public services (Hoddinott et al, 2022). Those spending cuts were heavily biased towards deprived areas (Beatty and Fothergill, 2014;Gray and Barford, 2018).…”

“…These aimed at reducing budget deficits and there was hope that the cuts would bring efficiency gains, boosting public sector productivity and the quality of public service. Although austerity may have initially been prudent, macroeconomically (Born et al, 2020;Alesina et al, 2019Alesina et al, , 2020House et al, 2020;Jordà and Taylor, 2016), it also engendered many (un)intended consequences (see Fetzer, 2019;Cremaschi et al, 2022;Facchetti, 2023). This paper examines one such unintended consequence of austerity -how cuts to local government finances undermined efforts to shape climate action.…”

Without Roots: The Political Consequences of Collective Economic Shocks

“…Outbreaks generate grievances that extend beyond the realm of immediate disaster management and relief (Arceneaux and Stein 2006;Bechtel and Hainmueller 2011;Chen 2013;Gasper and Reeves 2011;Healy and Malhotra 2013;Malhotra and Kuo 2008) to concerns about the fate of one's community, thereby increasing the appeal of far-right parties' messages centered around identity and the restoration of neglected places (Mudde 2007;Elgenius and Rydgren 2017;Gidron and Hall 2020;Bolet 2021). Affected communities that already harbor resentment against the state due to a lack of access to local public services (Cremaschi et al 2023;Nyholt 2023;Rickardsson 2021;Stroppe 2023) provide an even more fertile ground for far-right messages. These contexts already feature a "community narrative" (Rosen 2017;Small 2002;Small, Harding, and Lamont 2010;Somers 1994) of abandonment by the state, which gives residents a lens with which to interpret the outbreak and its economic and socio-cultural consequences as yet another manifestation of being left behind.…”