Mr Crhistian Joel Gonzalez Cuatianquis (p), Daria Denti, Alessandra Faggian

Anti-system and nationalist political movements have become central actors in advanced democracies, generating a well-documented “geography of discontent” shaped by local socioeconomic and demographic conditions. While existing research has extensively examined the territorial determinants of political resentment, far less is known about its consequences within affected communities. This paper shifts attention from the origins of discontent to its local-level implications, asking whether and how hostile political climates toward ethnic minorities shape young people’s educational aspirations, and whether these effects differ by ethnicity.
We focus on Italy between 2012 and 2018, a period marked by increasing social fragmentation and rising support for anti-system parties. Using administrative microdata from INVALSI on secondary school students (10th grade), we construct measures of tertiary education aspirations for native Italian students and first- and second-generation foreign students. These individual-level data are combined with province–year indicators of anti-minority political narratives, racial hate-related events, and socioeconomic conditions. The richness of the data enables multilevel estimations that account for both individual characteristics and contextual factors.
Our findings reveal persistent and widening aspiration gaps between Italian and foreign students, particularly among first-generation migrants residing in provinces characterized by strong anti-minority climates. Exposure to hate events and hostile narratives is systematically associated with lower tertiary education aspirations among foreign youth, though the magnitude of the effect varies across groups. Parental education and school type mitigate these negative effects, highlighting the buffering role of family and institutional contexts. In contrast, Italian students’ aspirations appear largely unaffected by local hostility. This paper demonstrates that the geography of discontent carries long-term socioeconomic consequences. Hostile political environments not only reflect territorial grievances but also shape migrants’ future-oriented behaviors and life chances. In doing so, they contribute to the reproduction of inequality and the fragmentation of local communities.

Mr Lorenzo Rossi (p), Dr Marco Di Catald

Does losing access to European funding lower European sentiment? This paper examines the causal impact of losing EU Cohesion Policy funding on regional European sentiment, measured through voting behavior in European Parliament elections. Exploiting the staggered timing of regions losing the less developed (convergence) status, we apply difference-in-differences estimators to identify the effect of funding cuts. Our findings indicate that regions experiencing funding losses exhibit a significant decline in support for pro-EU mainstream parties, coupled with increased votes for opposition and anti-establishment parties. These political shifts are particularly pronounced in regions that suffered adverse economic outcomes after losing funds. This study highlights the political consequences of cohesion funding reductions and underscores the importance of cautious policymaking regarding EU financial allocations. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to causally examine how losing EU funding affects public sentiment toward the EU.

Dr. Davide Luca (p), Dr Zhiwu Wei, Dr Pei Kuang

While the literature on the geographies of discontent has primarily focused on the determinants of electoral outcomes, less is known about the economic impacts of 'discontent-driven' political events. In this paper, we explore the consequences – rather than the causes – of populist events such as Brexit. We measure the extent to which political polarisation influence economic expectations and actual behaviours. Using British nationally representative surveys and administrative data, we show that the Brexit referendum triggered stark divergences in individual micro and macro expectations between Leave and Remain supporters. These diverging beliefs influenced major financial decisions. Leavers became more likely to purchase durables and engage in housing transactions, and areas with higher proportions of Leave voters experienced increased housing transaction volumes and rising prices. Our findings highlight how issue polarisation, beyond partisanship, can influence both economic expectations and real-world decisions.

Prof Lenzi Camilla, Mr Giovanni Perucca (p)

Ten years ago, the result of the Brexit referendum represented one of the first sensational and unexpected electoral outcomes explicitly against the political and economic status quo. In the last decade, it was followed by the rapid increase of the support for radical parties in most developed countries.
The literature on this phenomenon highlighted the peculiar geography of protest voting, recurrently overlapping with the spatial distribution of economic and social decline (Dijkstra et al., 2020; Hooghe and Dassonneville, 2018). This empirical association supported the idea that the lack of occupational and economic opportunities fuelled life discontent that, in turn, translated into extreme voting (McCann, 2020). In this perspective, the persistent economic stagnation of marginalized areas triggered what Rodríguez-Pose (2018) termed the “revenge of places that don’t matter”.
While a broad literature provided evidence supporting this interpretation, some recent studies pointed to the occurrence of some mismatches between the geographies of life dissatisfaction and political discontent. Lenzi and Perucca (2025) suggested that the reasons of such mismatch are related to two understudied determinants of political discontent. The first one concerns the rise of inequality across different social groups and territories. In an era of increasing wealth polarization (Piketty and Saez, 2003), more unequal local communities are likely to foster individual discontent, through mechanisms of comparison and benchmarking. The second factor involves the heterogeneous role of some non-economic factors in shaping individual voting behaviour. A long line of research has shown how group influences individuals’ preferences and behaviours toward in- and out-group members (Shayo, 2020). The political mobilization of identities to provoke place-based resentment (Bornschier et al., 2021) remains unexplored, especially in its regional dimension, which includes identifying local behavioural patterns and social beliefs that may either reinforce or mitigate such mechanisms.
This paper focuses on the relationship between life and political discontent, and on the way in which inequalities and individual and collective cultural features mediate this association. Making use of individual survey data on the preferences for Brexit and other individual characteristics (among which personal life dissatisfaction), this study provides new evidence in the literature on the geography of discontent.

Dr. Anna Lewczuk-Czerwińska, Dr. Kateryna Zabarina (p), Prof. Przemysław Śleszyński

This article aims to explain the regional differences in COVID-19 vaccination rates in Poland, taking into account living conditions and quality of life in municipalities, political conditions, and socio-economic spatial processes. The study used publicly available data on: the percentage of vaccinated residents in 2,477 Polish municipalities as of 20 March 2022, characteristics of municipalities representing their level of socio-economic development, and the level of support for anti-establishment candidates in the 2020 presidential election. The analysis was conducted using the Spatial Durbin Error Model (SDEM). The results indicate that lower vaccination rates occurred in municipalities with characteristics typical of less developed areas with poorer living conditions and characterized by support for anti-establishment politicians. We identified the existence of significant spillover effects, indicating the diffusion of pro- and anti-vaccination attitudes between neighbouring municipalities. Our study contributes to the literature on the determinants of vaccination coverage by combining the perspectives of public health, regional economics and political geography.