Alessandra de Renzis (p), Giulia Urso

Giovanni Perucca

By analysing the results of two national elections held in Italy (in 2013 and 2018) from a Hirschman's 'exit-voice-loyalty' model perspective, the paper intends to contribute to the debate reflecting on whether the consensus for incumbent governments may be explained by the feeling of being left-behind by globalisation and policies. Following the identification of three economic distresses that have affected manufacturing occupation in recent years, by means of a longitudinal analysis performed at Local Labour Systems level,we found that despite having experienced a long-term socio-economic decline,some places did not shift to protest voting. We analysed their puzzling geographical distribution, looking for explanations of their aggregate voting behaviour. Policy-wise,our findings may prove to be potentially enlightening to draw a lesson from the past, especially in light of the current challenges posed by the post COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine-linked energy crisis that are likely to further exacerbate territorial disparities and shake the political arena.

Rune Fitjar (p)

Alessandra de Renzis

In the regional science literature, the growth of anti-system and populist political movements in recent years has been interpreted as a revenge of the left-behind regions (Rodríguez-Pose 2018; Dijkstra et al. 2020). In country after country, anti-establishment sentiments gather support in the rural areas, in declining regions – indeed, in most places outside the main cities. This is true of the support for Donald Trump in the US, for Brexit in the UK, for the yellow vest movement in France, and for the Five Star Movement in Italy, to name but a few.

In political science, the same development has often been interpreted as the birth of a new cleavage – between materialism and postmaterialism in Inglehart’s (1977) framework, between green-alternative-libertarian and traditional-authoritarian-nationalist (GAL-TAN) voters in Hooghe et al.’s (2002) guise. In these perspectives, the new political conflicts revolve mainly around value-based or cultural divides, distinct from the classical economic cleavage of the left-right dimension.

However, the insights from regional science suggest that this purported new cleavage might not be detached from economic realities after all. Indeed, it might not even be a new cleavage as much as the increased salience of a very old one: The centre-periphery cleavage.

This paper presents a conceptual discussion of how the revenge of the places that don’t matter can be understood as an expression of the centre-periphery cleavage in the context of the post-industrial economy. Furthermore, it presents an agenda for future research on the topic from this perspective. This revolves around three main topics: First, how can we study the salience of the centre-periphery cleavage in party political debate relative to other cleavages using manifesto data? Second, what are the effects of distance from the centre in geographical and social dimensions on support for anti-system votes? Third, how is the regional support for anti-system voting shaped by region’s competitiveness in the global economy and in the competition for public investments?

Luise Koeppen (p)

Rune Fitjar

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing trend in voting for parties that are typically described as populist, in both the right and left side of the political spectrum. Previous research on populism tends to focus on developments of socio-economic conditions and value-change as the main explanation of voting preferences. In the study presented in this paper, we explore spatial variations of voting patterns in Europe and consider subjective well-being as an additional
factor affecting political attitudes. Hereby, we particularly focus on parties typically described as populist and extremist. In particular, we use a multilevel modelling framework to analyse how regional variations in levels of subjective wellbeing (SWB) across European democracies are linked to different likelihood of voting for radical right and left parties. Our empirical investigation exploits the multilevel nature (at the individual and regional levels) of the European Social
Survey (ESS) data, collected between 2010-2018. In addition, we examine the link between subjective measures of wellbeing and political preferences across Europe, along other conventional factors (i.e. economic insecurity and cultural variables). Our results build on previous studies in relation to the factors influencing the ‘geography of discontent’ across EU regions by explicitly considering individual subjective well-being measures as possible explanatory factors. Additionally, our findings also provide insights into the possible roles of strong regional community, cultural and emotional ties which may be associated with the decline of individual subjective well-being alongside long-term area
level decline.

Liliana Cuccu, Nicola Pontarollo (p)

Luise Koeppen

Increasing discontent and the associated growing support for populist parties have been linked to several factors, including globalisation, technological change, and migration waves. We analyse a phenomenon which combines all these factors: the logistic revolution. Due to globalization and the increasing outsourcing of transport and logistics activities in manufacturing, the logistics sector grew quickly in the last decades. The Italian logistics sector mostly employs low-skilled workers and is characterized by a wide use of low-paid temporary contracts that increase economic insecurity and the feeling of uncertainty. We investigate whether Italian municipalities which experienced a marked increase of logistics activities also registered a growth in discontent, which we capture as the change in votes for the Lega party between 2006 and 2018 national elections. Using an instrumental variable approach, our analysis confirms the existence of a causal relationship between the local growth of the logistic sector and the support for the most anti-EU party in Italy, the Lega. This result is confirmed also by a Difference-in-Differences analysis.

Camilla Lenzi (p), Giovanni Perucca (p)

Nicola Pontarollo

The increase of economic inequalities and their spatial polarization is more and more at the core of the debate on the societal wellbeing of Europe. Several studies showed how an unequal distribution of wealth within regions and communities persist and even increased in Europe over the last decades. Importantly, the spatial dimension of this phenomenon matters, being urbanized areas those where intraregional inequalities are more intense.
In a recent study (Lenzi and Perucca, 2021), we measured the association between disparities and individual discontent in EU regions. Our findings show that intraregional inequalities (i.e. the unequal distribution of income within the region) are those influencing individual discontent the most, and their effect largely overcomes the one of interregional inequalities (i.e. the economic growth experienced by the region in the last decade).
Stemming from these results, the present paper aims at studying the role of urbanization in mediating the negative effect of intraregional inequalities on individual discontent. In principle, this role may be either positive or negative.
In the former case, urbanization economies, like occupational opportunities and easier access to public services, may mitigate the negative effect of intraregional inequalities on subjective wellbeing, making cities the perfect environment for social mobility to take place. In the latter situation, on the other hand, urbanization diseconomies, like urban land rent and cost of living, may induce mechanisms of spatial segregation, in which disadvantaged individuals have a very limited access to urban the benefits of urbanization. Access to schooling is a typical example.
The hypothesis we want to test is that the prevailing role of urbanization between the moderation/exacerbation of intraregional inequalities is:
- Dependent on the typology of urbanization. Our hypothesis is that, in correspondence to the highest levels of urbanization, diseconomies prevail over urbanization economies, thus leading to a worsening of the effect of intraregional inequalities on subjective wellbeing.
- Highly differentiated across groups of individuals. People in conditions of relative disadvantage (economic, professional, educational, technological) are those paying the highest costs on intraregional inequalities.

References
Dijkstra, L., Poelman, H., & Rodríguez-Pose, A. (2020). The geography of EU discontent. Regional Studies, 54(6), 737-753.
Lenzi, C., & Perucca, G. (2021). People or Places that Don’t Matter? Individual and Contextual Determinants of the Geography of Discontent. Economic Geography, 97(5), 415-445.