KONINKLIJKE VLAAMSE ACADEMIE VAN BELGIE
VOOR WETENSCHAPPEN EN KUNSTEN
CONTEMPORARY CENTRIFUGAL
REGIONALISM: COMPARING FLANDERS
AND NORTHERN ITALY
19-20 JUNE 2009
Michel Huysseune
CONTACTFORUM
KONINKLIJKE VLAAMSE ACADEMIE VAN BELGIE
VOOR WETENSCHAPPEN EN KUNSTEN
CONTEMPORARY CENTRIFUGAL
REGIONALISM: COMPARING FLANDERS
AND NORTHERN ITALY
19-20 June 2009
Michel Huysseune
CONTACTFORUM
Handelingen van het contactforum "Contemporary Centrifugal Regionalism: Comparing Flanders and Northern
Italy" (19-20 juni 2009, hoofdaanvrager: Michel Huysseune, Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
gesteund door de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten.
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opbouw van de teksten zijn de verantwoordelijkheid van de hoofdaanvrager (of editors) van het contactforum.
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KONINKLIJKE VLAAMSE ACADEMIE VAN BELGIE
VOOR WETENSCHAPPEN EN KUNSTEN
Contactforum CONTEMPORARY CENTRIFUGAL
REGIONALISM: COMPARING FLANDERS AND NORTHERN
ITALY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contemporary Centrifugal Regionalism: Comparing Flanders and Northern Italy ………1
Michel Huysseune
Tragically Modern. Centrifugal Sub-Nationalisms in Belgium, 1830-2009 …………... 17
Marnix Beyen
The Territorial-Identitary Side of a Democracy: National Belonging and
the Regional Issue in Contemporary Italy ..……………………………………………. 29
Gaspare Nevola
The Belgian Federal System: an Unstoppable Centrifugal Dynamic? ……………….…53
Patrick Stouthuysen and Theo Jans
Is the Federal Process in Italy Going to Construct a System, a Polity or Nothing? ….....63
Giuseppe Gangemi
The Political Economy of State Restructuring and the Regional Uneven
Transition to After-Fordism in Belgium ..……………………………………………… 83
Stijn Oosterlynck
Forced to Respond to Globalization. The Disembeddednes of Italian
Industrial Districts and its Discontents .…………………………………………………95
Anna Cento Bull
Comparing and Contextualizing Interpretations of Regional Difference:
Italy vs. Belgium ……………………………………………………………………….109
Michel Huysseune
How to Understand the Peculiar Public Discourse on Immigration
and Integration in Flanders? ...………………………………………………………… 127
Patrick Loobuyck and Dirk Jacobs
Xenophobia or Democratic Differentiation? A New Path of Separation and
Discipline for Migrant Workers in Italy .………………………………………………141
Devi Sacchetto
Value Patterns and Local Identity in Flanders: In Search of a Regional Identity ……...157
Marc Hooghe
Culture, Values and the Social Basis of Northern Italian Centrifugal
Regionalism. A Contextual Political Analysis of the Lega Nord ..…………………….171
Roberto Biorcio and Tommaso Vitale
The Embedding of Radical Right Parties in Local Networks: an Ethnographic
Study at the Neighbourhood Level in Antwerp (Flanders) …………………………….201
Lien Warmenbol
The Northern League (Italy). A Party of Activists in the Midst of a Partisan
Militancy Crisis ………………………………………………………………………...219
Martina Avanza
Centrifugal Regionalism and Political Mobilization in Belgium ……………………...235
Jeroen Van Laer
Beyond the Territory: Local Mobilizations in Northern Italy Against the
HSRL in Val di Susa and the US Base in Vicenza ..………………………………...…253
Gianni Piazza
Centrifugal Regionalism in Flanders and Northern Italy? Elements
for a Comparison ……………………………………………………………………… 269
Michel Huysseune
De Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten coördineert
jaarlijks tot 25 wetenschappelijke bijeenkomsten, ook contactfora genoemd, in de domeinen
van de natuurwetenschappen (inclusief de biomedische wetenschappen), menswetenschappen
en kunsten. De contactfora hebben tot doel Vlaamse wetenschappers of kunstenaars te
verenigen rond specifieke thema’s.
De handelingen van deze contactfora vormen een aparte publicatiereeks van de Academie.
Contactforum “Contemporary Centrifugal Regionalism: Comparing Flanders and
Northern Italy” (19-20 juni 2009, hoofdaanvr.: M. Huysseune, Vesalius College, VUB)
The recent political crisis in Belgium has drawn attention to the centrifugal dynamics of its federal system. This
crisis characteristically involves both interest and identity, economic arguments reflecting the unwillingness
within the richer community (Flanders) for continuing support of the poorer one, and non-economic arguments
related to the travailed relations between the country’s communities. Such centrifugal forms of regionalism also
appear in, e.g., Scotland, Catalonia and the Basque Country, and northern Italy.
The comparison between Belgium and Italy has a particular interest since both countries share many similarities
like the North-South tension and a low degree of satisfaction with the political system. Taking into account that
the identity-building process in northern Italy is a recent phenomenon and hence does not reflect a “historical”
mobilization of an ethnic minority, both cases concern the questioning within the richer region of economic
mechanisms of national solidarity.
This contact forum proposes to reach, by means of systematic and multidisciplinary comparison between
Flanders/Belgium and Northern Italy/Italy, a better understanding of the dynamics that characterize these two
particular cases, and in particular which factors stimulate or constrain this centrifugal regionalism: the
construction of identity, the issue of institutional reform, the development models of successful regions and its
possible relation with ethnocentrism and support for radical right parties.
CONTEMPORARY CENTRIFUGAL REGIONALISM:
COMPARING FLANDERS AND NORTHERN ITALY
Michel Huysseune
Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
1. INTRODUCTION
The continuous political crisis with which Belgium is confronted has drawn attention to
the political fragility of the realm and to the centrifugal dynamics of its federal system.
The crisis characteristically involves both interest and identity, economic arguments
reflecting the unwillingness within the richer community (Flanders) to continue
supporting the poorer one, and non-economic arguments related to the travailed relations
between the country’s communities. Such a centrifugal form of regionalism is far from
unique in Western Europe. Similar cases, where the affirmation of regionalism is related
to a potential secession of the economically privileged, concern Scotland, Catalonia and
the Basque Country, northern Italy, with Slovenia offering a successful model.
The comparison between Belgium and Italy has an additional interest since, as De
Winter, della Porta and Deschouwer have pointed out, both countries share many
similarities: besides the North-South tension, particularly relevant for our purpose are a
low degree of satisfaction with the political system and high levels of support for neopopulist and radical right parties (De Winter et al., 1996:216).1 Both the strong emphasis
on economic arguments and the embedded presence of radical right parties that (have)
defend(ed) secession moreover distinguish Flanders and northern Italy from other
European cases of centrifugal regionalism. Because of these similarities, studying a
particular phenomenon in one country thus indeed contributes to interpret the other one,
since “knowledge on Italy can help us to understand Belgium and vice versa” (idem:215).
Taking into account one important difference, the fact that the identity-building process
in northern Italy is a recent phenomenon (promoted since about twenty years by the Lega
Nord, colloquially known as the Lega) and hence does not reflect a “historical”
1
This text resulted itself from the workshop “Partitocracies Between Crises and Reform:
The Cases of Italy and Belgium”, presenting a systematic interdisciplinary comparison of
the two cases on a number of salient issues. The proceedings were published in
Deschouwer, 1996.
1
mobilization of an ethnic minority,2 both cases concern the questioning within the richer
region of economic mechanisms of national solidarity, in a context where moreover the
groups concerned (Flemish and Francophones, northern and southern Italians) are,
contrary to the other cases, of a relatively comparable size.
Within member states of the European Union, the existence of centrifugal forms
of regionalism certainly problematizes dominant narratives of European integration.
Regionalism and the affirmation of regional identities in the European Union are
perceived in an ambivalent and at times schizophrenic way. Literature (e.g. Hooghe and
Marks, 2001) has frequently pointed out the advantages the EU multi-level framework of
governance offers for pacifying ethno-political and secessionist conflicts. Within the EU,
sovereignty and hence competencies in policy areas are shared between the different
levels of governance, creating a cooperative environment for the development and
affirmation of institutions at the third, sub-state level. This process is presumed to lead to
the articulation of multi-layered rather than exclusive identities, resulting in a postnational Europe characterized by unity in diversity, in which citizenship of the EU offers
an additional layer of identification. Processes of regionalization or devolution have in
several cases indeed led to the creation of an institutionalized context that enables the
political empowering of ethnic minorities, and regionalist parties have in fact undergone a
gradual process of Europeanization (Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro, 2006).
In this context, it has been hypothesized that regional identities are presently
being deployed as tools for regional mobilization for development, rather than for the
affirmation of an exclusive self. This interest parallels the recent attention paid to
regional economies. The regional development paradigm is interested in the territorial
roots of development and the possibilities of new development models embedded in local
society.3 Both Flanders and northern Italy are in fact considered examples of successful
regional economies. The affirmation in the 1970s and 1980s in much of northern Italy of
locally rooted industrial districts that emerged seemingly independently from the action
of the Italian states triggered off the theorization of a new, post-fordist economic model
based on flexible specialization that promotes the empowerment of local society (Piore
and Sabel, 1984). The Flemish model is likewise in a large measure based on small and
middle enterprises with regional authorities playing an important role in supporting
growth strategies. In both cases, these economies are understood as endogenous,
2
We make abstraction here of the mobilization of ethnic minorities in specific regions of
Italy. Especially the relation between the German-speaking majority in Alto Adige (South
Tyrol) and the Italian state would also offer an interesting case for comparison with
Flanders, although the parameters for such a comparison would clearly be very different
from the one between Flanders and northern Italy. While the dynamics of language
politics have many similarities in Flanders and Alto Adige, the two cases do differ in two
fundamental dimensions. Historically, the German-speaking community in South Tyrol
has a long tradition of active opposition to the Italian state, only moderated by its
acquisition of extended autonomy, while in Flanders active opposition to the Belgian
state only emerged in the exceptional circumstances of the First World War and has
always remained minoritarian. The issue of financial transfers moreover follows an
opposite dynamic, since the province of Alto-Adige is the beneficiary of extended
transfers to guarantee its loyalty to the Italian state.
3
For the debate around this paradigm, see Keating et al., 2003.
2
embedded in society and rooted in local culture, and hence inherently related to regional
identities.
Centrifugal forms of regionalism question this pacified image of essentially
development-oriented regions. The desire for more power, and ultimately statehood, may
reflect the little effective power the third level of governance really possesses within the
EU framework. Such regionalism also reveals how the European Union, a space for
institutional cooperation between member states in which regional authorities also
participate, is at the same time an institution that sponsors a competitive worldview that
may undermine solidarity and cooperation. The present economic crisis in Europe has
indeed given visibility to the problematic nature of cooperation between member states
and the difficulties of legitimizing towards national constituencies decisions that imply
solidarity with other member states. Within member states, even when no ethnic issues
are involved and no claims for secession are made like in Germany, richer regions
equally have started questioning financial solidarity with less rich regions.
The problematic legitimacy of European solidarity repeats on a larger scale what
some contemporary articulations of regionalism already express, the necessity to abandon
costly forms of solidarity in a context of competition on the global market and fiscal
competition between territorial entities. Although the issue of fiscal autonomy and
transfers plays a role in many cases of centrifugal regionalism (but also in the political
debate between German regions where no such centrifugal tendencies as yet exist),
Belgium and Italy distinguish themselves by the importance given to this issue. This
specificity certainly has an ideological component: more than in other cases the
intellectual debate in Flanders and northern Italy is characterized by an outspoken
hegemony of neo-liberal ideology.4 In Italy, the concept of “fiscal federalism”, defined in
its more radical form as the right for regions to preserve their fiscal income entirely for
themselves, has linked the Lega’s demands to mainstream opinion.5 In Flanders, the
debate concentrates on social security transfers between regions: the interpersonal
principle of the Belgian social system hence is reinterpreted from a regionalist
perspective, and the legitimacy and necessity of interregional transfers is questioned. In
both countries, critiques of transfers are (often more implicitly than explicitly)
legitimized by the combination of two ideas: firstly that poorer regions are in need of
cultural adjustment and that this can only be reached through a drastic cure of austerity
4
In many other cases of centrifugal regionalism, its ideological tendencies are much
more pluralist, and frequently independence is also a political option defended by leftist
political movements which are more critical towards or explicitly reject neo-liberalism
(e.g. ERC in Catalonia, the leftist Basque nationalist parties, the Scottish Socialist Party).
Whether rhetoric adherence to neo-liberalism really corresponds with espousing neoliberal policies, can of course be questioned (see Mudde, 2007 for populist radical right
parties, Huysseune, 2006 for the Lega Nord).
5
In its practical applications, the concept is of course suitably flexible, including almost
any reform of the fiscal system. However, its principle is indeed the idea that regions
would have a natural right to preserve their income entirely to themselves. In the Italian
context, the concept has thus a radically different meaning from that given by scholars
(including Belgian ones, see e.g. Cantillon and De Maesschalck, 2007) who use the same
term to refer to the necessity to locate social security and redistributive mechanisms in
general at the highest possible level of governance.
3
and liberalization (the equivalent of the IMF’s structural adjustment), secondly that richer
regions need their fiscal means to better guarantee the efficiency of their economy and
the welfare of their population. In neither case, opponents of regional transfers are
prepared to envisage the possible perverse effects of the increased regional inequality that
would probably result from such policies (cf. Cantillon and De Maesschalck, 2007), or
they rather believe that diminished means will magically contribute to resurrect the
poorer region; only the Italian political scientist and fellow-traveller of the Lega Nord
Gianfranco Miglio has dared to state that such policies would necessitate a drastic
limitation of the access of southern Italians to northern Italy and its social services
(Anonymous, 1995:14). In both the cases studied here, however, justifications of antiredistributionist policies do not limit themselves to neoliberal ideological utterances.
They argue for self-government by linking regional excellence to social and cultural
specificity, and justifications of anti-redistributionist policies moreover need to be
contextualized in the longer time-frame of debates on regional development in both
countries, since Belgian independence (1830) and Italian Unification (1860-1861).
Contemporary justifications of centrifugal regionalism emphasize the rootedness
of economic virtues in regional culture and traditions. In the case of economically more
successful regions this easily leads to the formulation of a discourse that suggests their
cultural superiority. In Italy, Maurizio Franzini and Salvatore Lupo have observed how
such visions of cultural superiority are in fact well embedded in the social sciences, for
example in David Landes’ The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.6 Such scholarship refers
to Max Weber’s famous The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1976).
In its unproblematized reading of entrepreneurial culture and its association of culture
with national, regional and/or ethnic identity, this approach rather resembles 19th century
literature that sought for an explanation of economic success and political freedom in
(generally ill-conceptualized and stereotyped) readings of national character (cf. Romani,
2002). This approach seems to be oblivious of the fact that the emergence of the social
sciences in the late 19th century was in fact characterized by a questioning of such
simplistic readings of national character (ibid., especially chapters 5 to 7). The two cases
of this volume certainly exemplify the dangers of a routinized and unproblematic reading
of presumed national or regional characteristics. The regions studied here, Flanders and
northern Italy, distinguish themselves for example by the strong presence of xenophobic
political parties, Vlaams Belang (formerly Vlaams Blok) and the Lega Nord.7 Both
parties moreover combine xenophobic viewpoints against immigrants with a negative
vision of the nation’s Other (Wallonians and southern Italians) and by this means justify
the region’s claim to independence, hence raising questions about the possibly deleterious
dynamics of discourses of regional economic success.
It is these ambivalent dimensions of regionalism, the articulation of regional
identity combined with the development of centrifugal tendencies whereby richer regions
question national solidarity and redistributive policies, interacting with the affirmation of
xenophobic parties, that this volume proposes to research, by means of a systematic and
6
Franzini and Lupo, 2003:10-11. The reference is to Landes, 1998. Landes himself
always discusses culture at the national level, and in fact presents a reified view of
national cultures. Obviously, regional cultures can equally be reified.
7
The similarities between the two parties have regularly drawn the attention of scholars.
See e.g. Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro, 2001.
4
multidisciplinary comparison between Belgium and Italy, and more in particular
Flanders/Belgium and Northern Italy/Italy. Because we limit ourselves to these two cases,
the goal of our comparison cannot be a generic understanding of the potential centrifugal
dynamics of regionalism in Europe. We rather propose to reach a better understanding of
the dynamics that characterize the two particular cases we study, and especially which
factors stimulate or constrain this centrifugal regionalism.
By presenting the main characteristics of the two cases, this introduction intends
to outline the context for their comparison. As we will argue underneath, both cases
display a significant number of similarities but also of relevant differences for
confronting them. In both countries, the processes described above have of course
attracted much scholarly attention from political scientists, sociologists, historians,
economists and anthropologists. The framework of interpreting them has, however, been
very much case specific: interpretative frameworks and research questions derive very
much from national traditions of scholarship. A confrontation of how in both countries
this centrifugal regionalism is interpreted and contextualized should hence contribute to
deprovincialize the respective understanding of each of the cases, but also offer new
approaches for studying them.
2. FLANDERS IN BELGIUM
The case of Flanders in Belgium is in the first place the outcome of the longstanding
political mobilization of a “historical” ethnic group, characterized by its language, Dutch.
This process with the emancipation of the Flemish community as its goal, known as the
Flemish Movement, originated in the 19th century. It questioned the political, economic
and cultural dominance of the Francophone elite in Belgium after independence (1830).
This mobilization firstly led to the acceptance of the use of Dutch in the public space
(administration, courts, education) and the recognition of Dutch as an official national
language (1898).8 In the 1930s Dutch obtained an equal legal status with French, and in
the 1960s a language border delimiting Flanders, Wallonia and the bilingual region of
Brussels was established. In a following stage, the unitary state itself was questioned,
leading to a seemingly never-ending process of institutional reforms, but also to the
division of all (previously national) political parties along language lines. Since 1993,
Belgium is officially a federal state. The centrifugal dynamics of this process lead (in
particular from the Flemish side) to continuously renewed demands for transfers of
competencies towards the regional level, raising the question of the future of the Belgian
state. These institutional dynamics towards reform coincide with a more general distrust
towards political institutions, characteristic of public opinion in the whole of Belgium.
Debates on reform of the Belgian state are hence also concerned with creating institutions
that can generate more trust from citizens.
The Flemish movement has from early on also been concerned with economic
issues. In the 19th and early 20th century, Flanders was economically underdeveloped
8
From its origins, the Flemish movement has insisted on the linguistic unity between
Flanders and the Netherlands, and has therefore striven for the acceptance of Dutch as its
official language. The term “Flemish” is often used to describe the spoken language in
Flanders (itself strongly differentiated by dialects), but is not officially recognized.
5
compared to Wallonia, and the Flemish Movement has therefore always been interested
in the economic development of the region and the creation of a Flemish entrepreneurial
class. Flanders became economically predominant after the Second World War, when the
decline of the coal mines in Wallonia (in the 1950s) and later of its steel industry (1970s
and 1980s) coincided with an economic boom in Flanders. The Flemish economic
success story is on the one hand based on the port of Antwerp and its hinterland which
have attracted international investors, on the other hand on grassroots development of
small and medium enterprises.
The construction of a Flemish identity has also undergone important evolutions.
Until the First World War, the Belgian state was never questioned and Flemish and
Belgian identities were considered compatible. Radicalized by the First World War, part
of the Flemish Movement adopted after 1918 a strongly nationalist profile, and rejected
the Belgian state. The Flemish nationalist party (originally the Frontpartij - Front Party,
later the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond – Flemish National Union), originally ideologically
pluralist, was in the 1930s increasingly dominated by extreme right tendencies, and
would be compromised by collaboration with Nazi Germany during Occupation. The
post-war Flemish Nationalist party, the Volksunie (People’s Union), therefore highlighted
its democratic profile, although extremist fringes were active within the party.
Reaching autonomy has largely coincided with a reformulation of identity
according to new terms, those of socio-economic modernity. The dominant discourse in
Flanders, including the one produced by the Flemish government, now emphasizes the
region’s modernity and normality, its virtuous insertion in the global economy, and
proposes the region as a model of development. The importance of traditional grievances
and of the Flemish nationalist mythology has gradually declined, or has taken the shape
of the specific extreme right ideology of the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, formerly
Vlaams Blok, Flemish Block), inspired by the pre-War Vlaams Nationaal Verbond
(several of its founders were linked to collaboration with Germany during the Second
World War).
The Vlaams Belang for sure symbolizes the dark side of Flemish nationalism and
problematizes the apparent “normalization” of Flemish identity. In a context of declining
support for democratic Flemish nationalism, from the 1980s on, the party experienced a
process of seemingly unstoppable electoral growth, culminating in its 19,2% of the
Flemish vote in the 2007 national elections (senate, Flemish college). Its programme
combined the demand for Flemish independence with a more or less explicit racism, and
the redefinition of Flemish identity along explicitly ethnic lines, in terms that excluded
non-Western immigrants.
Recent national elections (2010) have witnessed the decline of the Vlaams Belang
(12,3%, senate, Flemish college) but not of parties sympathetic towards Flemish
independence. The 2009 regional elections witnessed the relative success of the Lijst De
Decker (5,5% in Flanders), a party that professes a right-wing neo-liberal populism and is
also sympathetic towards the independence of Flanders. More important even was the
result of the resurrected democratic Flemish nationalist party N-VA (Nieuw-Vlaamse
Alliantie, New Flemish Alliance). After its important gains in 2009, it scored an even
more spectacular victory in the 2010 national elections, becoming the most important
party in Flanders, polling 31,7% (senate, Flemish college). Its political discourse follows
the democratic tradition of Flemish nationalism (albeit with a conservative bent).
Contrary to the Vlaams Belang it proclaims its faith in democracy and rejects racist
6
interpretations of Flemish identity. In line with mainstream views of Flemish identity, its
discourse emphasizes the region’s economic modernity. Ambivalent on the issue of the
independence of Flanders, its justifications for the increase of regional autonomy or
independence highlight institutional efficiency rather than ethnic arguments.
While mainstream Flemish parties tend to avoid overtly negative stereotypes of
other regions, the formulation of a Flemish regional identity as an instrument for
development is nevertheless related to the negative image that is predominantly attributed
to the francophone and Wallonian Other. The self-identity of Flemings is indeed focused
on a number of characteristics which are presumed to differentiate them from Wallonians,
first of which is their work ethic. As Kris Deschouwer points out, Flemings like to
understand themselves as “workers, not thinkers. This is not the Protestant spirit but the
Catholic one, in which suffering hard and being able to suffer is crucial” (Deschouwer, in
Keating et al., 2003:84). Flemish also perceive themselves as dynamic and pragmatic (vs.
ideologic) (ibid). This self-image reflects the dominant political tradition of the region,
Christian democracy (vs. a socialist and hence “ideological” Wallonia). Flanders is at the
same time also represented as an example of good governance, to be contrasted to the
weakness of governance, clientelism and corruption in Wallonia. Differences in political
culture and ideology between the two parts of the country do play a role in their
respective articulation of identity. Although the history of the Flemish movement is
complex, its dominant tendencies have leaned ideologically rather towards the centreright than the left, and most of its activists and politicians clearly identified themselves
with Catholicism (in a country where for a long time Catholicism – anticlericalism was a
major cleavage, which corresponded with the regional cleavage since the former stance
was dominant in Flanders, the latter in Wallonia and Brussels).
The dynamics of the Belgian party system, where parties are divided along
community lines, has in the meantime normalized the affirmation of a Flemish identity,
and proposals for institutional reforms and more autonomy are supported by almost all
parties in Flanders. Articulations of regional identity paradoxically occur in a context
where the traditional drive for establishing identity has weakened (Vos, 2002:200-201).
Rather schizophrenically, a more relaxed attitude towards regional identity in Flanders
coincides with affirmations of the region’s cultural superiority in comparison to
Wallonia. At the same time, Wallonia itself is involved in a process of identityaffirmation (belated compared to Flanders, because of its weaker identitarian tradition).
In their emphasis on normality and regional potential for insertion in the global economy,
new Wallonian identity affirmations in fact resemble the Flemish example. To counter
Flemish discourses on economic superiority, they describe a pluralist and tolerant
Wallonia, to be contrasted with an allegedly narrow-minded nationalist and xenophobic
Flanders.
The discursive practices in the two communities are for the moment largely selfcentred, with little dialogue between the communities but also with little tradition of
theoretical reflection on the causes of regional difference and inequality in Belgium. This
self-centredness reflects the dynamics of the political system, whereby the political
parties organized among community lines only have to cater for their own community
constituency. Media and intellectual life follow the same dynamic: since education, the
university system and the media are also organized at the community level, there has
been little space to reflect on togetherness and on Belgian identity, and in the respective
media representations of the other community stereotypes abound. In this context,
7
mainstream public discourse in Flanders, even when anti-secessionist, is definitely
characterized by a demand for more autonomy and hence a reinforcement of the Flemish
region. At the same time, proposals regarding language issues - homogenizing Flanders
itself and limiting or abolishing the rights of the French-speakers in Flanders - are
frequently raised. Demands for more autonomy clearly also follow an economic logic
besides an institutional one, since generally they imply a reduction of redistributive
mechanisms and of the interregional transfers of the national welfare system.
The political success of Vlaams Belang raises the delicate question of the relation
between the affirmation of identity and xenophobia, a question that is rarely addressed in
Flanders. Both discourses presumably reflect a different constituency. The affirmation of
Flemish identity is in particularly favoured by its emerging class of entrepreneurs, less
linked to the Belgian establishment than their predecessors. It also finds ample echoes in
the Flemish media and can count on a solid (but certainly not unanimous) support within
the Flemish intelligentsia. The early electoral constituency of the Vlaams Belang, on the
contrary, was strongly working class (often former socialist voters), attracted by its
xenophobia rather than by its Flemish nationalism (Billiet and De Witte, 1995). The vote
for the Vlaams Belang/Vlaams Blok also reflects a distrust of political institutions, rather
widespread in Belgium as a whole, but that has found more electoral expression in
Flanders than in Wallonia.
In a context where both the institutional and non-institutional context enhances
community identification and produces centrifugal tendencies, counter-tendencies are
nevertheless equally present albeit less visible. The separation of media and public
spheres may lead to the underestimation of sentiments of attachment to Belgium. Albeit
Belgicist mobilizations as a rule tend to be much stronger among Francophones,
collective nation-wide mobilizations on other issues do occur (e.g. the White March of
19969) and hence suggest the continued existence of a Belgian public space. As a result
of the prominent regional and community focus in the public space and the media, the
reasons for attachment to Belgium and the social and ideological roots for such
attachment are underexposed. Concerning the intellectual debate, Belgicism is
undoubtedly in the first place present on the Francophone side, although recently some
intellectual in Flanders have also expressed their interest in a new understanding of the
meaning of Belgium (not necessarily in the shape of traditional Belgicism) and in a better
mutual understanding between its communities.
Centrifugal regionalism in Flanders thus incorporates many partly overlapping,
partly contradictory tendencies. It is the heir of a tradition of political mobilization for
national emancipation. Ideologically, its questioning of the principles of solidarity and
redistributive justice certainly has affinities with neo-liberalism. In its radical right
expressions, it clearly incorporates the idea of welfare chauvinism, i.e. the idea that social
security and welfare allowances should be allocated according to ethnic criteria.10
9
The dismissal of the examining magistrate responsible for the investigation of the
crimes committed by the paedophile murderer Marc Dutroux led in the fall of 1996 to a
nation-wide protest movement culminating in a demonstration in Brussels on October
20th – the White March - with the participation of several hundred thousand persons.
10
For the concept of welfare chauvinism, see Kitschelt and McGann, 1996. Although
welfare chauvinism is by no means the monopoly of the far right, contemporary radical
right parties are often characterized by their strong emphasis on this issue.
8
Because of the hegemonic position the Flemish identity discourse has acquired, the
exclusionary logic that this articulation of identity may imply tends to be overlooked,
reflecting a more general tendency to ignore the problematic features of the Flemish
development model.
3. NORTHERN ITALY VS. ITALY
The case of northern Italy has a different historical background, since it is not marked by
a tradition of ethnic mobilization, although the economic North-South differentiation has
been important throughout the country’s post-Unification (1861) history. Italy’s
internally differentiated identity undoubtedly has strong historical roots. The process of
Italy’s unification once realized, its elites became confronted both with the cultural and
linguistic diversity within the country (only a small minority of the population spoke
standard Italian) and the economic and social cleavage between the North and the South,
and in particular the territories of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Neglecting the
impact of the process of forceful incorporation of these territories, part of public opinion
tended to interpret this divide in cultural, ethnic or even racial terms. Although racially
inspired interpretative frameworks have since then been marginalized, public discourse in
Italy has been characterized by an uneasy equilibrium between affirmations of the
nation’s unity (including in cultural terms) and assumptions on the presence of a strong
internal economic and socio-cultural divide. This divide has frequently been formulated
around dichotomies such as modern/backward, Europe/Africa, entrepreneurial/nonentrepreneurial.
From the 1990s on, with the emergence of the Lega Nord purporting to defend the
interests of the North, the significance of this divide has been politicized rendering it
more similar to the Belgian case. Until the rise of the Lega Nord, notwithstanding the
presence of prejudices against southerners, conceptualizations of this divide exercised
little political impact although they played an important role in intellectual interpretations
of the country’s problems (on prejudices see Sniderman et al., 2000; on intellectual
interpretations see Huysseune, 2006). Interpretations arguing for northern superiority,
however, have from their origins met with fierce critique from southern intellectuals.11
The serious problems of the South had in fact given birth soon after Unification to a
school of thought on the Questione Meridionale, the “Southern Question”, a tradition that
has played an important role in Italy’s intellectual and cultural history.
The present cycle of renewed interest in the North-South divide has its origins in
the late 1980s and the early 1990s. It largely corresponds with the rise of the Lega Nord
that has given centrality in the public debate to the so-called “Northern Question” (and a
relative neglect of the Southern Question). This shift reflects the questioning of
mechanisms of redistribution between the richer North and the less affluent southern
regions. Although ideologically sustained by neo-liberalism, the prominence given to the
Northern Question certainly also reflected exasperation over practices of bad governance
(corruption, connivance with organized crime) in the South, and of the political system in
general. In the early 1990s it coincided, as a consequence of the tangentopoli scandal,
11
For an overview of the important debate on this issue at the turn of the 19th and 20th
centuries, see Teti, 1993.
9
with a general crisis of the Italian political system, and debates on the Northern Question
interacted with those on reforms (of Italian institutions and in particular the electoral
system), and gave visibility to demands for a federalist reform. Even when the Lega
declined in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the issue of institutional reforms reorganizing
the relations between centre and periphery has remained an intrinsic element of the neverending Italian debate on such reforms.
The Lega’s articulation of the North-South opposition also expressed a more
general juxtaposition of insiders and outsiders that from the outset was also oriented
against immigrants. The racist dimension of the party’s ideology, present from its origins,
has become even more prominent in recent years (including a reinforced anti-Islam
stance reflecting the post 9/11 global context). This racism certainly intends to give a
political expression to popular prejudices against immigrants. Its relation with
mainstream discourses is more complex, since these discourses frequently combine a
principled anti-racism with interpretative frameworks that often reflect prejudices and
stereotypes (Dal Lago, 2004). Particular to the Italian context is also the role played by
the Catholic Church, and the affirmations of the Christian and more specifically Catholic
identity of the country (incidentally strongly sponsored by the Lega in recent years) that
can easily create a discriminatory dynamic towards non-Catholics (although the Church
itself in recent years has been among the more outspoken opponents of discrimination of
immigrants).
The emergence of the Northern Question in the early 1990s has certainly
promoted a reading of the North-South divide as a cultural and civilization one, and it is
by offering such a reading that the Lega Nord managed to enter into dialogue with the
political mainstream. In fact, while mainstream opinion has met with scepticism the
Lega’s articulation of regional or a presumed “Padanian” ethnic identity, the party’s focus
on the North-South divide has received a much more sympathetic response (although not
up to the level of really endangering the country’s unity). By reading the North as the
productive people (highlighting the entrepreneurial culture in the region) and
emphasizing the economic and socio-cultural modernity of the region (contrary to the
South) and its insertion in the ideal realm of modernity, Europe, the Lega frames its
discourse in fact within the traditional modern-backward dichotomy.
The emergence of the Lega has thus led to a re-evaluation of Italy’s identity, but
the results of this re-evaluation appear to be very contradictory. Italian media are
generally very careful in the way they represent the various regions of the country. At the
level of the intellectual debate in Italy, the unity of the nation continues to be affirmed
(and such affirmations have even become stronger, as a reaction against the Lega’s
secessionism), but there is at the same time a new focus on regional diversity and on the
Northern Question (Huysseune, 2006). Although mainstream opinion rejects the Lega’s
secessionism, in northern Italy there is rarely if ever, as Gianfranco Viesti (2003:70) has
pointed out, a definite and explicit opposition against the arguments that the Lega
proposes. A deleterious consequence of this frozen debate is moreover the disinterest in
the problems of the South (idem:ix). Although Italy, contrary to Belgium, clearly has a
national communicative space and intellectual debates on Italian identity and institutional
reform are clearly national, reflections on specific regions and in particular the South
seem to reach a more restrained regional audience. The lively debate that the South itself
has experienced in recent years thus has only exercised a limited impact on outsiders’
10
interpretations of the region.12 Moreover, the disinterest in the region has certainly not
helped to solve its problems, which may easily result in a revival of anti-southern
attitudes when these problems come to the fore again.
It is remarkable that throughout this debate no real consensus has ever been
reached on how to define these entities “North” and “South”; the Lega itself has as a
matter of fact proposed a variety of territorial delimitations of the northern entity. The
Italian debate therefore reflects a paradoxical situation where the presumed
characteristics of groups are relatively well defined while the exact delimitations of these
groups are unclear. However fluid categories in Italy may be, their use as interpretative
tools is nevertheless relevant since prejudices against southern Italians appear to be
important in the whole of northern and central Italy (Sniderman et al., 2000).
The widespread presence of anti-southern prejudices in northern Italy stands in
contrast with the political articulation of a northern identity. Contrasting with the Flemish
case where regional identity has been normalized, in northern Italy the Lega is the only
political expression of this territorial identification. The party obviously only represents a
minority within the North. Electoral support for the Lega support has traditionally been
strongly embedded in specific regions, Lombardy, Veneto, Venezia Giulia and Piedmont
(and in a somewhat lesser measure in the autonomous province of Trento). All studies on
the electorate of the Lega concur in observing that the Lega has been able to implant
itself in (sub)regions where formerly the Christian democrat party took a dominant
position, but has encountered much more difficulty to make headway in the northern
(sub)regions with a strong leftist tradition (see e.g. Diamanti, 1995; Biorcio, 1997). The
Lega is also a party of the industrialized periphery of the North rather than the centre:
except for a short period in the early 1990s it has generally been much less successful in
larger cities of the North, even in its territorial heartland. The political expression of
prejudice and/or rejection of national solidarity therefore remains also within northern
Italy a territorially well-delimited phenomenon.
In its discourse, the Lega combines the economic rationale behind secession with
a cultural understanding of the North-South divide, but also with a more general inside
vs. outsiders logic. Characteristic of the Lega is a combination of rhetoric affirmations of
liberalism with welfare chauvinism and a protectionist discourse, defending the unilateral
right to protectionism for northern Italy; a protectionism that also implies the territory’s
defense against outsiders. The institutional reforms the Lega proposes have the same
goal, protecting the population of Padania against outside interference, and from this
perspective it can present secessionism as a logical choice. The Lega has admittedly not
consistently defended secessionism, but all the reforms proposed by the Lega are
nevertheless characterized by their anti-redistributionism and their strong rhetoric
emphasis on self-government for the North.
The configuration of the relation between the Lega and the Northern Question is
hence a complex one. Many features of the Lega’s discourse are indeed radicalized
reformulations of normal features of northern self-perception, including in its intellectual
elaborations, and in the early years of the Lega the party was frequently considered to
12
Because of the common language, separation between the two parts is not necessarily very
strict, and some intellectuals with a northern background do participate to the debate on the
South. The overall impression nevertheless remains one of a regional compartmentalization of the
debate.
11
express (albeit in a radical way) northern opinion. Especially in recent years, however,
commentators have attempted to establish a clear distinction between the Lega and the
dynamic elements of northern society, in particular its innovative entrepreneurial class.
They have pointed out that this class is modern and liberal, and has in fact favoured the
presence of immigrants in the North as a necessary element for the region’s development
(because of the scarcity of labour in this region). The racist discourse of the Lega is
presumed to reflect the interests of the Lega’s working-class constituency (rather its
privileged layers, well-paid and masculine). Whether such a clear ideological distinction
between the Lega and northern entrepreneurs really exists remains open for discussion.
A crucial consequence of the secessionist claim of the Lega and more in general
the emergence of the Northern Question has been the introduction of the theme of
federalism in the Italian public debate, although the exact meaning it should be given
remains remarkably vague. Controversies around the issue have concerned the
questioning of redistributive mechanisms between regions (the debate on fiscal
federalism) and the institutional organization of the state. These debates coincide with
polemics on institutional reforms: since the tangentopoli crisis of the early 1990s a neverending debate on institutional reforms (referred to as the transition from the First to the
Second Republic) is taking place. These debates reflect in fact the little trust Italian
citizens put in their institutions, and give expression to the belief that such reforms may
offer a solution for the limited legitimacy of these institutions.
Both the public debate on northern Italy and recent scholarly literature on the
North, following the Northern Question-paradigm, have tended to focus on those societal
tendencies that expressed this paradigm. The paradigm itself can, however, be critiqued
for juxtaposing the virtuous northern society to the Italian state. It thus ignores how both
have in practice constantly interacted and also pays limited attention to the deleterious
consequences of the northern economic model. They equally tend to ignore groups and
social processes outside this economic logic – voluntary organizations, leftist parties,
social movements, political mobilizations – remain underresearched (Huysseune,
2006:140-143). Recent contributions clearly propose a more critical perspective on
northern Italy and its economic model (Berta, 2008; Perulli and Pichierri, 2010), but only
partially correct the essentially economic and apologetic perspective from previous
writings. The link between the political dynamics of centrifugal regionalism and the
social disorder that this economic model has engendered (cf. Magatti, 1998) therefore
remains underresearched.
4. ELEMENTS FOR A COMPARISON AND CONFRONTATION
The comparison and confrontation between the two cases this volume proposes takes at
its starting point the obvious issue of identity. The first two contributions of Marnix
Beyen and Gaspare Nevola propose a contextualization of the present articulation of
regional identities in the political history of respectively Belgium and Italy, and contrast
and confront it with the alternative articulation of a national, state-bound Belgian and
Italian identity. Institutions of course play a crucial role in the articulation of centrifugal
regionalism. Patrick Stouthuysen and Theo Jans focus their contribution on the
centrifugal dynamics of the Belgian federal system, while Giuseppe Gangemi is both
concerned with analyzing the meaning of federalism in the Italian context and the
12
problematic relation between the Lega’s nation-building claim and present and historical
territoiral delimitations within Italy.
The contributions of Stijn Oosterlynck and Anna Cento Bull reflect the eminent
place of the economic component in contemporary articulations of regional identity,
albeit they view these identities from a different perspective. Oosterlynck analyses how
the newly created Flemish government created in the early 1980s the region’s economic
identity. Cento Bull focuses on the contrary on the tensions that the northern Italian
economic identity is presently undergoing, especially in its industrial districts that both
provide the region with a socio-economic identity and are a crucial political constituency
of the Lega Nord. The economic component of regional identities is clearly related to the
intellectual articulation of these identities, the topic Michel Huysseune confronts
(exceptionally from a comparative perspective including both cases). His contribution
locates debates on regional economic excellence in an evaluation of scholarly
interpretations of regional difference, and also contextualizes these interpretations both
within international debates on the explanation of differentiated development and in the
case-specific national traditions of self-understanding.
In the two regions, the articulation of centrifugal regionalism undoubtedly has an
ethnocentric component. The following chapters in this volume studies study racism and
xenophobia, an issue tackled by Patrick Loobuyck and Danny Jacobs for Flanders and
Belgium, and by Devi Sacchetto for Italy. Loobuyck and Jacobs focus on the institutional
level, and propose an analysis of the policies of the Flemish region towards allochtones,
and how these policies are related to the region’s articulation of identity. Sacchetto’s
contribution is more focused on the role of racism in the economic model of northern
Italy, but it also draws attention to the relation between the grass-root level presence of
ethnocentrism and official policies towards non-European immigrants.
If we accept the theoretical perspective that identities are constructed, the
following chapters propose an empirical verification of the claims of the political and
cultural actors producing identity claims. On the basis of a number of surveys Marc
Hooghe verifies the empirical salience of claims of cultural difference between Flemings
and Francophones, and additionally pays attention to patterns of territorial identification
in the different Belgian regions. Biorcio and Vitale are equally interested in investigating
cultural differences between northern and southern Italy, but focus more on verifying
whether empirical data corroborate the Lega’s claim to represent northern Italy and the
values northern Italians adhere to.
The presence of strong radical right parties that equally defend independence
raises the question of their social embedding. The contributions of Lien Warmenbol and
Martina Avanza focus on explaining the success of the party at the grass-roots level, and
the relationship between party activists and society. Warmenbol’s contribution analyses
how the Vlaams Belang has been able to construct strong electoral support in some
neighbourhoods of Antwerp, but also why it was less successful in other ones with a
similar socio-economic profile. Avanza also outlines the context in which the Lega
constructs grass-roots support. She focuses in particular on those militants involved in the
party’s nation-building project, the “Padanists”, and the social and cultural dynamics that
sustain their activism.
The importance of centrifugal tendencies in Flanders and to the Northern
Question in Italy may lead to the underestimation of countervailing tendencies. Although
representations of northern Italy and Flanders tend to outline a homogenous success
13
model, these regions can equally be interpreted as divided societies. With this issue in
mind, the contributions of Jeroen Van Laer and Gianni Piazza discuss political
mobilizations in two very different contexts. Jeroen van Laer analyses demonstrations in
Belgium, and proposes to investigate whether they express national or regional patterns
of mobilization. Piazza investigates two protest movements on local issues in northern
Italy, the No Tav movement in Val di Susa and the No Dal Molin movement in Vicenza,
and outlines why these mobilizations propose an interpretation of local identity that is by
all means very different from that articulated by the Lega Nord.
Reflecting the nature of this volume as a research-in-progress, Michel
Huysseune’s conclusion firstly proposes a summary of the findings of the various
contributions. It also intends, however, to already draw some conclusions from this
comparison, and to offer a set of elements for an interpretation of centrifugal regionalism.
As such, it proposes a starting-point for a further more in-depth analysis of the
phenomenon of centrifugal regionalism at a broader, European level.
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Biorcio, R. (1997), La Padania promessa. La storia, le idee e la logica d’azione della
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Cantillon, B. and V. De Maesschalck (2007), Sociale zekerheid, transferten en
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14
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15
TRAGICALLY MODERN
CENTRIFUGAL SUB-NATIONALISMS IN BELGIUM, 1830-2009
Marnix Beyen
University of Antwerp, Department of History
1. INTRODUCTION
”Belgium is two countries”. The conclusion drawn by the Flemish journalist Peter
Vandermeersch (2009) from the regional elections of June 2009 was echoed in many
similar comments in the Flemish newspapers. The sheer numerical results of the elections
did seem to buttress such a conclusion. In the Walloon regional parliament 43 out of 73
seats were allotted to the two left-wing parties, the Socialists and the Greens. The
corresponding parties obtained only 26 out of 124 seats in the Flemish regional
parliament. The difference becomes even more striking when one looks at the right-hand
side of the political spectre. In Wallonia, an outspoken Right-wing party does not even
enter into parliament. The Christian Democrat party is dominated by left-wing
tendencies, and even the Liberal Mouvement Réformateur can only be called Centre
Right. A very similar distribution of the seats can be found in the Francophone
Parliament, which includes also the Francophone representatives of Brussels. By contrast,
45 seats in the Flemish parliament are occupied by parties positioning themselves firmly
to the right of the Liberal and Christian Democrat Parties. However generalizing it may
be, the difference between a right-wing Flanders and a left-wing Francophone Belgium is
indeed very striking.
In the current-day comments, the novelty of this situation is often stressed or at
least suggested. However, when comparing the election results of the 2009 regional
elections with those of the 1894 national elections, one can only be struck by the
continuity. Admittedly, the comparison is somehow false, since the suffrage system was
entirely different then (there was a system of Plural General Male Suffrage, and of a TheWinner-Takes-It-All-principle in relatively small constituencies) and the regional
elections did not yet exist. Nonetheless, the general picture was very clear-cut: all 66
seats within the four Flemish provinces were attributed to Catholics, whereas in the four
Walloon provinces, the same party obtained only 13 out of 58 seats. The remaining 45
seats in Wallonia went to either Socialists (28), or to Liberals (17). The bilingual
province of Brabant, ultimately, was exclusively represented by Catholics, except for the
3 Liberal MPs elected in Nivelles (see De Smaele, 2009:74; Gerard e.a., 2003:453).
17
The gap between a right-wing Flanders and left-wing Wallonia is, therefore, a
persistent one, even if the meaning of the words “right-wing” and “left-wing” did
considerably change in the meantime. New, however, is the extent to which these
differences are pronounced and given shape in (sub)nationalist terms by the political
parties, who since the 1970s operate on a regional instead of a national level. Two of the
three right-wing parties in Flanders (Vlaams Belang and Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie)
explicitly call themselves “Flemish Nationalist”, and the third one (Lijst Dedecker) does
equally use a very autonomist discourse. Moreover, the autonomist tendencies are very
strong also within both the Christian Democratic and the Liberal parties. The left-wing
parties are more reticent when it comes to using sub-nationalist rhetoric, but only the
Greens do express active loyalty to the Belgian state. At the Francophone side of the
country, this disengagement with the Belgian state is more rare and, in any case, less,
explicit. But the regional identification of these parties – especially of the left-wing
parties – is very real nonetheless.
In the course of the twentieth century, thus it can be concluded from these
examples, a process has taken place in which the divergence between the political
orientations of both parts of Belgium has been transformed into a nearly insurmountable
antagonism between two sub-nationalisms, threatening Belgium in its very existence. In
this respect, the Belgian case is very different from that of most other European nationstates of the nineteenth century, in which a fragmented electoral geography did not lead
to the dismantling of the nation. The question why these regional differences did have
such a centrifugal effect, was and still is heavily debated one among historians. After
having presented the main lines of interpretation in this debate, I will try to offer an
answer to this question which takes into account the institutional as well as the cultural
and the social history of the country.
2. TWO OPPOSING VIEWS
Broadly speaking, two different storylines are recurred upon in order to explain
Belgium’s divided character – each one of them appearing in multiple varieties. The first
one of those can be called essentialist, the second one constructivist, even if those terms
are rarely used by the authors themselves. The essentialist view is predominant among
the adherents of the sub-nationalist movements. In Flanders, its influence is so pervasive
that it seems to determine popular thinking about national history. Constructivist views
are held in the first place by academic historians, but popular versions of it are very
central to historical consciousness in Francophone Belgium, and to the (rather marginal)
Belgian patriotic circles.
In the essentialist view, Flanders and Wallonia appear as separate ethno-cultural
entities (whether or not as parts of the Greater Dutch or the Greater French nation), which
have been accidentally thrown together in an artificial Belgian state. The disintegration of
that state, therefore, was unavoidable from the start, in spite of all the fierce, but
superficial patriotism of the Belgian elites. That process was, according to these authors,
driven from below, since the “ethnic” loyalty of the people to Flanders or Wallonia was
much stronger than the civic loyalty to Belgium. The Belgian state and its adherents
figure in this narrative as an oppressor of the legitimate claims of the Flemish – and to a
lesser degree the Walloon – claims at self-determination (e.g. Elias, 1970-1971;
18
Lamberty e.a., 1972-1979; Genicot, 1973; Platel, 2004). Constructivists, on the contrary,
see the process of nation-building in Belgium as elite-driven. They discern, however, an
important difference between the slow and profound process of state-building which
culminated (at the latest during the last decades of the 18th century) in the Belgian nation,
and the originally narrow-based nationalist commitment which succeeded during the 20th
century in creating the Flemish and Walloon nations. The Flemish and the Walloon
movements emerge within this storyline as groups of petty bourgeois intellectuals who
felt excluded from the levers of power within the Belgian state, and/or who were inspired
by Romantic ideals about language as the main marker of national identity. Even when
these elite-groups had given birth to nationalist mass-movements, they remained – within
the constructivist perspective – the prime movers of Flemish and Walloon nation-building
(e.g. Reynebeau, 1995 and 2003; Stengers, 2000-2002; Wils, 2005).
A striking example of the discussion between “essentialists” and “constructivists”
was offered in the 1970s by the debate on the origins of an anti-Belgian current within the
Flemish movement. In a very influential book, the Leuven historian Lode Wils situated
these origins in the First World War, when the German occupier had successfully lured a
small group of mainly young Flemish Nationalists – the “Activists” - into active
collaboration by offering the perspective of independence (Wils, 1974). As such, Wils
presents the anti-Belgian elements in the Flemish Movement as a foreign import product,
whose success was due to the fact that it served the ambitions for power of a very small
group of young intellectuals. By doing so, he reacted categorically against the most
influential “essentialist” historian of the movement, H.J. Elias. For Elias, Activism had
been the logical outcome of the existing anti-Belgian tendency within Flanders.
According to Elias, the “natural” opposition between Flanders and Belgium unavoidably
had to lead to the breakdown of the latter.
The same antagonism between an essentialist bottom-up and a constructivist topdown perspective appears in the attempts to explain the rapidity of the process of
federalization (i.e. the process in which the political autonomy of the sub-national entities
was institutionally anchored) since the 1970s. The dynamics behind this process, so the
constructivist line of reasoning runs, was created by the newly born political classes in
Flanders and Wallonia, who were trying to enhance their powerbase by extending the
regional competences. In a more essentialist reading, this process simply confirmed the
existing differences between the Flemish and Francophone parts of the country.
Recently, some important books have seen the daylight which potentially shake
the constructivist consensus among academic historians in a fairly fundamental way.
These books were published by academic historians who are far removed from any form
of Flemish Nationalist militancy, but show each separately the importance of Flemish
identity feelings within broad layers of the population during the last decades of the
nineteenth century. Henk de Smaele (2009) convincingly showed how the thirty years’
absolute majority of the Catholic party between 1884 and 1914 was based on its ability to
associate itself with an emergent Flemish self-image, built upon traditional and rural
values. Maarten Van Ginderachter (2005), in turn, asserted on the basis of a huge mass of
evidence that the Socialist workers of Ghent, for all of their resistance against the
organized Flemish Movement and their loyalty to the Belgian socialist party, identified
with “Flanders” much more than with Belgium. Finally, Herman Van Goethem (2008)
concluded that the point of no return for the disintegration of Belgium has to be situated
in 1893, when the Male and Plural General Suffrage was introduced. As such, he suggests
19
that the splitting up of Belgium was caused by a process of democratization rather than
by the disruptive nationalism of Flemish elites.
Even if these authors do not draw this conclusion for themselves, their books
could easily be instrumentalized for a return to the essentialist thesis. They do seem to
indicate that the ethnic identification with Flanders largely prevailed over the rather
superficial and largely elitist loyalty to the Belgian state. Potentially, this strengthens the
claim that Belgium was an accident of history, and an obstacle to the development of the
two ethnicities in its bosom. This conclusion, however, would be headlong, since it is not
warranted by any evidence of Flemish or Walloon ethnic identification before 1830. In
my opinion, the disintegration of Belgium was indeed to a certain degree inbuilt in the
architecture of the Belgian state, but not because of its ethnic duality or its oppressive
nature. I rather believe that the weakness of the Belgian state sprang directly from the
will of its founding fathers to create an outstandingly modern state. The modernity they
aimed at contained both centralism and liberalism, two largely contradictory ambitions.
The paradoxical character of this ambition became all the more lethal because of the
specific demographical composition of the Belgian population and of the cultural context
in which the Belgian state came about. All this elements together provide for a kind of
Greek tragedy, in which the protagonist becomes the victim of his own good intentions
and actions. It is this “tragic” version of Belgian history that I want to present in this
paper.
3. BELGIUM AS A TRAGIC HERO
If the antiquity of the Belgian nation can be subject to doubt, the ancient character of the
Belgian state cannot. In many ways, the Belgian state of 1830 can be seen as the
legitimate heir to the Burgundian empire which was created in the 15th century. The
central institutions which were then created for representative politics (the General
Estates) as well as for justice and government politics (the Great Council), would survive
until the end of the Ancient Régime. Much more than the Netherlands, therefore,
nineteenth-century Belgium could rely on a tradition of state centralism (Wils, 2005:77).
Loyalty to this central state and its rulers formed the basis of the proto-national feelings
which developed since halfway the 18th century at the latest (Verschaffel, 1996; Koll,
2003; Dubois, 2005). Nonetheless, the final thrust towards the construction of a modern
Belgian nation state was formed by half a century of protest against what was seen as an
exaggerated form of state centralism. The highly centralizing reigns of consecutively the
Austrian emperor Joseph II, the French revolutionaries and the Dutch Enlightened Despot
William I were considered as a break with a “national” tradition, in which the monarchs
had always respected the liberties of the Belgian cities and provinces. As a consequence
of this, not only the nation’s past was re-interpreted as one long struggle against “foreign
dominations” (Stengers, 1981), but in a more fundamental way the nation’s elites were
filled with a thorough suspicion against the state as such. Ever since the protest
movement against Joseph II, this suspicion was fed both by conservative and by liberal
sentiments. During the reign of William the first, these two currents converged into the so
called “Monster Alliance”, which paved the way for the Belgian Revolution (Witte,
2005).
20
Once this revolution had rather unexpectedly resulted in an independent Belgium,
its leaders evidently chose to shape it into a modern nation-state. They could easily reconnect with the Belgian state traditions, which had continued to exist during William’s
reign, but implemented it with the modern ideal of national sovereignty. Due to the
national feelings which had developed during the preceding fifty years of (latent or open)
revolt, there remained little doubt among the élites about the fact that such a
homogeneous Belgian nation did exist. On the other hand, however, the anti-state feelings
aroused during that same period of revolt, did not disappear with Belgian independence.
On the contrary even, they found their way into the Belgian constitution, which was
extremely Liberal in the existing historical context. The central tenet guiding its architects
was that “Liberty in all and for all” (liberté en tout et pour tous) should be guaranteed. It
implied that it was considered necessary “to make disappear for once and for always the
obstacles through which the power has hitherto chained [free] thought, in its expression,
in its march forward, in its developments.” (Preamble of the Decree on Liberty of
Association by the Temporary Regime, 16 October 1830. Quoted in Velaers, 1991:92).
By choosing this central adage, the Belgian State bereft itself in a considerable
way of the possibility to become a strong state. It did not only do so for the sake of
individual freedom, though, but also for that of the Belgian towns and cities, whose
autonomy formed a crucial element in the Belgian historical self-representation and in the
actual development of the Belgian Revolution. The Law on the Communes of 1836
anchored the liberty and autonomy of these cities firmly into the Belgian constitutional
system, thus fundamentally de-centring power in Belgium (Strikwerda, 1997:29).
Through this weak self-positioning, the Belgian State favoured the emergence of
all kinds of sub-state identities in its bosom. Nonetheless, the Belgian authorities never
(until the 1970s at least) abandoned the ambition to form a centralized state – unlike for
example, Switzerland, which opted for a confederal system from the start. In a
paradoxical way, this seems to have further weakened the Belgian State. Given the strong
sub-state identities and a strong anti-state tradition, the central seat of power became by
definition a locus of contestation. Notwithstanding the claim of national sovereignty,
indeed, a seat of power is always occupied by specific (groups of) persons, at the
exclusion of others. Since the Belgian state had bereft itself to a high degree from the use
of repressive means, it offered an exceptional space for a struggle for power between
social groups at a sub-state level. If Belgium has been labelled a “consociational
democracy”, it is so in a very different manner as, for example, the Netherlands. In the
Netherlands, a country with a much less liberal tradition than Belgium, the segregation
between religious or ideological groups at the level of society did not preclude the search
for consensus at a political level. In the Belgian context, these groups were nearly
permanently contesting each other, with exceptionally strong political parties as
spearheads, in order to monopolize state power. Since such a monopoly was an illusion,
state power was divided among the different groups. The state kept on financing the
system, but lost vital functions (education, health care, …) to the intermediate level of
society, organized in so-called “pillars”.
This combination between centralizing ambitions and a deliberately weak state
power also formed the context in which regional identities could develop into powerful
sub-nationalisms. This situation was further stimulated by the specific demographic,
linguistic and cultural context of the country. Through a trick (or rather, a series of tricks)
of history, the Belgian nation was linguistically divided into two nearly equal parts,
21
belonging to two different language groups. In the highly decentralized context of the
Ancien régime, this was not seen as a problem, but it did necessarily become a source of
conflict within a centralized nation state. Unity of language is indeed one of the central
instruments of central state power. In the specific case of Belgium, this instrument itself
was fundamentally contested from the very start. From the Burgundian times until the
period of French domination, French had been the language of the central state in the
Southern Netherlands. Especially since the latter half of the 18th century, the attraction of
French as political and cultural language had engendered a Frenchification of the élites in
the Belgian towns – precisely those elites that occupied the seat of power within the
independent Belgian state. The further Frenchification of Belgian culture and
administration seemed unavoidable.
Things, however, were not as simple as that – as they would never be in the
Belgian context. Several obstacles made the generalization of French as language of
culture and administration problematic. First of all, the historical continuity of the
Francophone centralization had been abruptly disrupted in the period between 1815 and
1830, when William I had tried to promote Dutch as language of the state. This language
policy was never successful, and was even one of the central causes of the revolt against
his rule (Von Busekist, 1989:41-49). But it nonetheless confronted a group of
intellectuals within the Flemish provinces with the prospect of Dutch being potentially an
official language. They would form the first core of Flamingants, who did not reject the
Belgian state, but tried to strengthen the Belgian nation by situating its specificity in the
Germanic character of its northern half (e.g. Draye, 2009). In doing so, they invented
Flanders in the modern sense of the word, i.e. as the Dutch speaking, northern half of
Belgium. A conflict with the advocates of French as the language of culture in the whole
of Belgium was unavoidable. This conflict became all the more strident because the
central seat of Belgian state power was situated in Brussels, which had served as capital
ever since the Burgundian unification of the 15th century. Brussels was geographically
situated in Flanders, at some twenty kilometers of the linguistic border, but its
Frenchification had reached much deeper than in other Flemish towns. The anger about
this “alienation” of the capital, and the fear that Brussels would serve as a powerful
epicentre for the entire Frenchification of Flanders, contributed very much to the
radicalization of these Flamingant circles.
The second obstacle to the systematic Frenchification of Belgium was the
deliberate weakness of the Belgian state, as described earlier in this paper. In their
attempt to Frenchify Flanders, the Belgian élites were never backed by an official state
policy. Obsessed as it was with liberty, the Belgian constitution proclaimed that the use
of language was free. As a matter of fact, the use of French has never been enforced by
law. Repressive language policy certainly was a reality, but it was carried out at an
intermediate level (school boards, enterprises, ….) rather than at state level. Nearly all the
linguistic laws which have been voted in the Belgian parliament (since the 1870s) were
aimed at protecting the use of “Flemish” in Flanders. It is false, therefore, to present the
Belgian state as an oppressor of the Dutch language, as Flemish Nationalists tend to do.
Rather, the “tragedy” of Belgian political history was playing at this level once more:
Frenchification as a social process was strong enough to foster frustration among Flemish
speakers – both among the ordinary people who experienced the linguistic difference as a
social barrier (Boeva, 1994) and among the intellectuals speaking in their name - but not
22
strong enough really to create a unilingually French state, based on a homogeneous
nation.
The modern character of the Belgian state-construction state was not only situated
in its extremely liberal character, but also in its comparative openness toward democracy.
Admittedly, real power in Belgium during the first fifty years of its existence was
probably situated in the hands of a small capitalist elite. Nonetheless, this power was
challenged by a system of political representation which rapidly grew more democratic.
As such, the sub-state identities which developed within the Belgian nation-state could
relatively quickly be translated into political power. From this perspective, Herman Van
Goethem’s thesis on the relationship between democratization and the disintegration of
Belgium seems reasonable. Maybe more than any other European country, Belgium
revealed what the Indian political scientist Sunil Khilnani (1993:190) has called “the selfdevouring capacities of modern democratic politics”. By democratizing without
thoroughly investing in the process of nation-building, the Belgian state undermined its
own basis.
Since the Belgian political and social élites could not recur to an official state
policy, their only chance for a successful nation-building consisted of the creation and
cultivation of a national culture. During the first two decades of Belgium’s independence,
which coincided with the heydays of Romanticism, the arts and literature in Belgium
were indeed largely consecrated at legitimizing and praising the nation’s past, present and
future (e.g. Tollebeek, 1998). Once more, however, this attempt was mortgaged by a
tragic form of irony. One of the main features of Romanticism undoubtedly was the
intimate link it suggested between language, ethnicity and nation. But precisely this
paradigm was lethal to a nation-state as Belgium, which was not only bilingual, but
consisted of two equal parts belonging to different language groups. The dividing line
between Germanic and Romanic cultures was, within the context of Romanticism, a very
fundamental one, implying not only linguistic, but also “characterological” and moral
differences. If conciliation between them was an ideal of many romantic authors, their
merger into one national culture was considered to be nearly impossible.
Hence, the attempts – during the last decades of the nineteenth century – to
proclaim such a thing as a “Belgian soul” were never very successful. Even its most
ardent advocates recognized that this Belgian soul was somehow bi-ethnic in nature.
More convincing was the metaphor of Belgium as a European crossroads of cultures – a
metaphor which was used throughout the nineteenth century, but was above all brilliantly
elaborated by the iconic Belgian historian Henri Pirenne during the first decades of the
twentieth century. In terms of cultural policy, Belgian authorities translated this idea into
the decision to support both French and – even more substantially – Flemish literature
(Verschaffel, 2001:149-160). However attractive, though, this image of a cultural
crossroads implied at the same time a recognition of the difficulty to provide Belgium
positively with a national identity of its own. It was a conglomerate of cultures, whose
history was very hard to tell in the form of a straightforward narrative. The strategy that
was used by many architects of Belgian historical culture, consisted of the use of
metonymy. Within this strategy, the rich history of the County of Flanders and, to a lesser
degree, the Duchy of Brabant, served as a pars pro toto for the entire Belgian history. The
key moments and the main heroes of the history of Belgium were either Flemish or
brabançon. Specifically Walloon local memories, such as the Liege myth of the 600
23
Franchimontois, found their way into the Belgian national heritage only at a later stage
and would never play an equally prominent role (Rottiers, 1995).
This strategy would turn out, once more, to be a tragic one. The pantheon of
Flemish heroes that was construed for the sake of the Belgian nation, could easily – and
without fundamental metamorphoses - be taken over by those intellectuals who tried to
prove the antiquity of the emerging Flemish nation. The Battle of the Golden Spurs and
its heroes Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck, the 14th century Ghent popular tribune
Jacques of Artevelde, the legendary hero Thyl Uylenspiegel, the carillon – they all moved
from the Belgian to the Flemish heritage (Morelli, 1995; Beyen, 1998; Beyen, Rombouts
and Vos, 2009). This symbolic arsenal facilitated the interpretation of contemporary
social and economical phenomena into sub-national terms. The great Flemish past served
as the background against which its current-day poverty was weighed, but also as a
beacon for those who wanted to strengthen the Flemish “ethnic force” through
demographic expansion and the construction of a Dutch speaking educational system.
The Flemish recuperation of the “Belgian” past in turn fomented frustrations
among the Francophone intellectuals, who since the last decades of the19th century
developed the Walloon Movement as a reaction against what they saw as Flemish
expansionism. If this movement found its origin among the Francophone élites in
Brussels and Flanders, it soon spread to Wallonia itself (Destatte, 1997). Notoriously, the
influential Wallingant writer and politician Jules Destrée wrote in 1911 an open letter to
the King, in which he asserted that the Flamingants had undermined Belgium by
“stealing” the entire Belgian heritage, both in material and in symbolic terms. For
Destrée, who would later become the Belgian Minister of Arts, the only legitimate
reaction was the development of a fully fledged Walloon nation within the context of a
federal Belgian state. Not surprisingly, the Walloon self-image which was carefully
construed ever since, was in many ways the opposite of its Flemish counterpart. Although
it partly recurred to a 19th century folkloric and dialectological tradition, it mainly
focused on the contemporary reality of industrial labour in the central axe between Liege
and Charleroi. Whereas the iconic figures in the Flemish identification were either the
medieval burgher or the contemporary peasant, in the Walloon self-image this role was
played by the factory worker (Courtois and Pirotte, 1999).
Probably more than genuine social, economic or religious differences, these
diverging self-images paved the way for the distinction between a left-wing Wallonia and
a right-wing Flanders. Not the recognition of this difference itself, but the reciprocal
frustrations on which the relationship between the language groups was built, undermined
the Belgian nation. In Flanders, these frustrations were built on the sense of linguistic and
social marginalization within the Belgian state and national culture. When the economic
fate of the two regions turned upside down in the course of the 20th century, this sense of
marginalization would gradually be replaced by an opposite frustration: that of Flemish
economic surpluses being used in order to pay for the Walloon deficits (Boehme, 2008).
In Francophone Belgium, ill-feelings towards Flanders relied rather on the fear that the
old dream of a homogeneous, Francophone Belgian nation-state, would be radically
mortgaged by the Flamingant actions. Significantly, the binding element between the
Walloons and the Francophone elites in Brussels and Flanders was not a common selfimage, but a common anti-Flamingantism (Kesteloot, 2004). In this complex cluster of
frustrations, the central state was an important object, but it lacked the legitimacy to serve
as an arbiter. This again, was a perfect ingredient for tragedy.
24
A striking illustration of the tragic character of Belgium’s history can be found in
the fact that the heydays of Belgian patriotism always served as a catalyst for subnational radicalization. Probably, the Belgian flag has never been waved more proudly as
during the First World War, when the country gained international acclaim as an innocent
but brave martyr of international aggression. Shortly after that war, however, it became
clear that the loyalty of many Flemings to the Belgian state had been far from
unconditional. When it turned out that the Belgian authorities were not prepared to
reward the sacrifice of many Flemish soldiers with the creation of a Dutch speaking
University, a considerable minority of the Flemish Movement started categorically to
mobilize against Belgium. With an amazing ease, they were prepared to forge an alliance
with the former Activists, who with the help of the German occupier had proclaimed
Flemish independence in 1917. The centenary of Belgian independence, in 1930,
witnessed a new upsurge of anti-Belgian mobilization at Flemish side, even if the long
awaited Dutchification of Ghent University took place precisely that year. This
radicalized section of the Flemish movement considered the Nazi occupation as a perfect
occasion for a new bid for power, even if the bulk of the Flemish people were
strengthened by these events in their Belgian patriotism. The second Flemish Nationalist
collaboration within a quarter of a century further widened the gap with the Walloon
movement, which managed to represent itself as the heart of Belgian resistance. A fierce
anti-Flamingantism even caused a majority of members of the Walloon National
Congress (a sort of non-official parliament) in 1945 to vote impulsively in favour of an
integration of Wallonia into France. Even if this vote was later overruled by a second
vote in favour of a federal Belgium, it was symptomatic for the profound suspicion on
which the Walloon movement, as well as its Flemish counterpart, was based.
This entire prehistory of reciprocal frustrations has deeply determined the history
of the federalization in Belgium, as it has taken place since 1970. This process was not
based on the recognition of regional differences, but on the fear that the other constituent
part would become too powerful in the central state, or would be able to profit more from
it. As a result, the process of federalization has been one long series of appropriations of
power and of preventive measures against “the other”, in which very little care has been
paid to the function and the workings of the central state. In the process, the latter has not
only been robbed of many of its competences, but also of its democratic legitimacy. Since
all parties have been regionalized and no national constituency exists, ministers in the
Federal Government are only backed by the votes of their own language group, even if
they decide on nationwide matters. The democratic character of the Belgian state has
ended by rendering it fundamentally undemocratic – which recently has become one of
the main Flemish Nationalist arguments against it.
4. EPILOGUE: THE MIRACULOUS TENACITY OF THE BELGIAN STATE
For the many commonalities between the history of modern Belgium and the ancient
Greek tragedies, there remains one big difference. Unlike the heroes of Greek tragedies,
Belgium has not, so far, heroically died, but it continues to exist in a very unheroic way.
In the light of the analysis which I have presented, this might even be the most surprising
part of its history. In these last paragraphs of my contribution, I will try to explain why
25
the forceful centrifugal identities within the Belgian state have succeeded in largely
dismantling the Belgian state, but not in simply replacing it.
A first line of explanation resides in the asymmetrical nature of the mutual
frustrations between the sub-national entities. Whereas many Flemings distrust the
Francophones as representatives of an anti-Flemish Belgian state, the deep-rooted antiFlamingantism in Francophone Belgium is on the contrary based on the idea that the
Flamingants have been the gravediggers of Belgium. In other words, their ill-feelings to
one another were based on very different attitudes towards the Belgian state: among the
Flemish middle-class these attitudes cover the entire range between hate and indifference,
but only rarely amount to sympathy or enthusiasm. Among Francophones, on the
contrary – especially among those of Brussels – Belgium is still seen as a primary locus
of identification, and of nostalgia. For most of them, abandoning Belgium is no option.
This asymmetrical relationship precludes a separation by mutual consent. In a democratic
context, however, consent is a necessary precondition for profound constitutional or
territorial changes.
Another asymmetry which fundamentally complicates every scenario for the
splitting up of Belgium, is the position of Brussels. Geographically situated in Flanders,
but profoundly Frenchified, the Belgian capital is at once an apple of discord – as I have
indicated earlier - and a chain between the two language groups. Both for the Flemings
and for the Francophones, the material and symbolic value of Brussels is too high simply
to let it go. In the process of federalization, the developing Flemish sub-state chose
Brussels as its capital, although many Flemings experience Brussels as a “foreign” city.
The Walloon region, for its part, preferred to install its political basis in Namur, but the
political connection between Wallonia and Brussels is guaranteed by the so-called
Communauté Wallonie-Bruxelles. The competence of this Communauté stretches out to
Francophone culture, education, and a whole range of social policy fields.
The bi- or multicultural Brussels identification which surfaces during the last few
years might contribute to loosen the links between Brussels and the regions. At the
Flemish side, indeed, a growing number of people are prepared to abandon Brussels and
to choose for another Flemish capital. In Francophone Belgium, on the contrary, the
resistance against the recent Flemish Nationalist radicalization tends to tighten the
Francophone bonds. The often depicted scenario with Brussels as an international citystate between two independent states (Flanders and Wallonia) will certainly not be
realized at short term.
A last reason for the tenacity of the Belgian state can be found in its international
position. Even if the extension of the European Union has removed Belgium from the
geographical centre of Europe, it continues to house its political headquarters. Those very
elements which have fundamentally weakened the internal coherence of the country, turn
out to be important assets at a European level. As a small bi-cultural country, it has been
and still is presented as pre-figuration of multi-cultural Europe. As such, the Belgian
patriotic “European crossroads”-rhetoric, which has long lost its functionality within
Belgium, seems to have been recycled by the international community. It lends to the
country an international prestige and recognition which sub-states such as Flanders and
Wallonia are still lacking. This international prestige might help to prevent a
straightforward implosion of the Belgian state, but at the same it possibly announces its
ultimate dissolution into a higher, European entity. Such an ending would perfectly
epitomize the tragic characterize of Belgian history. The constitutional and cultural
26
architecture of the country simply seem to have been too modern for the nation-state
format it adopted in 1830. Because of that, it became extremely vulnerable to centrifugal
tendencies from within and from without.
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artistique des pouvoirs publics en Belgique de 1830 à 1940, Bruxelles, Editions
de l’ULB:149-160.
Von Busekist, A. (1998), La Belgique. Politique des langues et construction de l’Etat,
Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot.
Wils, L. (1974), Flamenpolitik en Aktivisme, Leuven, Davidsfonds.
Wils, L. (2005), Van Clovis tot Di Rupo. De lange weg van de naties in de Lage Landen,
Antwerpen/Apeldoorn, Garant.
Witte, E. (2005), La construction de la Belgique, 1828-1847, Bruxelles, Racine.
28
THE TERRITORIAL-IDENTITARY SIDE OF A DEMOCRACY:
NATIONAL BELONGING AND THE REGIONAL ISSUE IN CONTEMPORARY ITALY
Gaspare Nevola
Università di Trento, Facoltà di Sociologia
1. INTRODUCTION
The period since the end of the Cold War seems to have been marked by the resurgence of “identity
politics” (Huntington, 1993; Castells, 1997; Maalouf, 1998; Benhabib, 2002; Hall, 2008; Todorov,
2008; Various Authors, 2009; Moisi, 2009). The rise of an identitary dimension in politics has
rendered the “post-1989 new world” somewhat obsolete. The vision of a pacified, harmonious and
“neutralized” world has collided with the attacks of 11 September 2001, the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, destructive international financial crises, the protests raised by “new global movements”
(anti or new-global), the tensions due to migratory flows, ethno-national or religious antagonisms,
claims for national independence or the defence of national identity, and demands for collective
belonging or “community”. In short, now that the supposed primacy of the functional (technicaleconomic-legal) dimension has dwindled, politics and its identitarian rootedness have returned to
the fore. In this scenario, the protagonism of the Nation-State resurfaces in the economic, financial,
military fields, and that of public security. Once again, despite the frequent obituaries written for it,
the nation-state has not passed away. It has proved to be a robust political construct, still flexible,
and rich with resources not readily available to other types of political organization (supranational
or subnational, or of some other kind) which challenge its political primacy and sometimes seek to
erode its sovereignty (Nevola, 2001; 2007b). In order to understand the factors responsible for this
political persistence of the nation-state, one must consider the political nature of this form of
organization of collective life and go beyond its conception as solely an administrative, legal and
economic apparatus. It is within this framework that one must locate issues of national and regional
identity, both in general and in the Italian case.
The “end of territories” was another idea spread in the aftermath of 1989 (Badie, 1995).
Globalization, with its technical-communicative infrastructures, seemed to be generating a
deterritorialized world (in economics, politics, culture and lifestyles). But this vision was at odds
with “real life”: it was too “top-down” and rather abstract. It confused trends, though significant
largely restricted to particular social groups, with a generalized situation. Deterritorialization was,
and still is, anything but a generalized phenomenon rooted in the reality of collective life in nearly
every corner of the world. Once again, politics has given visibility to a social reality misunderstood
29
by post-modern liberal thought.1 I refer to the entry on the political scene of movements tied in
various ways to the territory, and to their increasing political and/or electoral success. This repoliticization of the territory is embodied especially in certain nationalist, micro-nationalist or
“regionalist” movements (De Winter and Tuersan, 1998; Haupt et al., 1998; Caciagli, 2006).
But are we witnessing a “resumption” of the “nationalism of subnational territories”, of
“regional micronationalisms”? Or has this phenomenon substantially persisted, apart from brief
periods of its apparent disappearance when it was probably only in a state of latency? I say this
because, without going too far back in time, already in the 1960s and 1970s some analysts
emphasized the reawakening of subnational or regional-national nationalisms, or the “ethnic
revival” and ethno-nationalism (Glazer and Moynihan, 1975; Connor, 1994; Smith, 1981). It is true
that the “regional phenomenon” of the past twenty years has burgeoned in a context different from
that of the recent past: the advance of European integration, the geopolitical earthquake in Eastern
Europe, globalization and migratory flows have woven the “regional question” together with that of
the crisis of the nation-state, and with that of a “democratic malaise” expressed by the spread of
neo-populist or anti-party attitudes (Nevola, 2007c). However, this is not enough to explain why the
regional political-identitary phenomenon is as unexpected today as in the recent past. But is it truly
such a surprising phenomenon? The theory of political-territorial collective identity suggests that it
is not; and so does analysis of the processes of formation of the nation-state and of the nature of the
“fait regional”.
2. THE REGIONAL IDENTITARY QUESTION
The proper understanding of a national society also requires consideration of the territory’s
articulation and the various ways in which it is structured (varieties of the economic forms of
capitalism with its social formations, pluralism of the linguistic-literary heritage and of historical
traditions, differences of political culture and in the civic-associative system, varieties of electoral
behaviours and trends, differences of political-institutional and administrative models, etc.). On the
other hand, studies of political culture often consider “regional territories” to be places of “local
counter-cultures” – variously organized communities of “resistance” against the centralizing or
“colonizing” action of the Nation-State (Rokkan and Urwin, 1982; 1983; Caciagli, 1988; Kellas,
1991; Hechter, 1975). As some contemporary trends demonstrate, these resistances are not always
simple reactions or legacies from the past. Behind the conflicting political significance attributed to
“regional territories” lays the complex and ambiguous nature of the fait regional and of the relations
between regional and national identity.
The fait regional exhibits three main and frequently interweaving features: region,
regionalization, and regionalism.
1) Region. Like many concepts charged with political significance, that of “region” is
difficult to define unequivocally. A certain vagueness notwithstanding, it is usually related to
collective life spaces not on the scale of Nation-States which constitute an intermediary dimension
between “small-scale” (local or “micro-regional”) and “large-scale” spaces (“world regions”). The
region, in short, is one of the criteria with which modern Western thought defines subnational
spaces. The concept relates to contexts of collective life characterized by more or less marked
homogeneity (political, economic, cultural, religious, linguistic, and climatic); contexts of life
framed within a higher-order unit – the Nation-State – on which they depend in important respects.
These are contexts which often have some sort of political-administrative expression (or claim one).
This political-administrative expression is sometimes rather weak (in unitary-centralist Nation1
A similar view of contemporary society is taken by Elliott and Lemert (2006).
30
States like France); in other instances it is significantly strong (in federal Nation-States like the
United States or Germany); but the majority of cases (for example, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain)
lies between these two extremes. The intensity of the political-administrative expression may
change over time as a result of processes which are of various kinds but are ultimately political in
nature. Thus understood, the concept of “region” has a rather broad denotation: it comprises the
“historical region” (usually associated with “ethnic bonds”), but it is not restricted to this alone. In
other words, “region” may have a political-administrative denotation or a socio-cultural one (the
two sometimes coincide or reciprocally relate to each other). In the former case, the region is the
“largest political-administrative unit” within the Nation-State; in the latter, the term indicates
“territories where collectivities with their own identities are settled” (Caciagli, 2006:17).
Contemporary regions are not “realities given by nature”: for like Nation-States they are
“constructed” (historically, socially, politically and culturally). Consequently, they are collective
human “inventions”, regardless of whether “existing regions” are based on more or less “authentic”
historical traditions, or are of ancient origin, or produced by a simple act of administrative
delimitation. Also in the case of regions it is important to refocus their status as “inventions”. In
short, the point is that over time “invented regions” have tended to “objectify” and “institutionalize”
themselves.2 It thus happens that even the most “artificial” of them (like some of the current Italian
regions devoid of historical-identitary depth) gradually are consolidated and institutionalized in the
collective imagination, political culture, political-administrative practice, and sometimes even in the
everyday practices of citizens. In their transmission from one generation to the next, even some of
the most artificial regions have become “realities”, social “realities”, settings of politico-territorial
life: features in the landscape of the collective memory, distinct containers of “regional” histories
and personalities, usages and customs, rituals, myths, stereotypes or character. In short, regions
project their own identities, even though some of them are denser with historical and political
meaning than others. Moreover, they also vary in their degrees of internal integration, and their
degrees of external recognition or “weight”. All this explains why, still today, it is difficult to
reassemble “regional remnants” (at both the transnational and subnational level).
2) Regionalization. At least in the political-administrative sense, “regionalization” denotes a
process of promoting regions and regional identities. Usually top-down,3 this process works through
reforms undertaken by the Nation-State to devolve certain functions and competences to the
regions. It is a process which applies a territorial criterion in the organization of economic systems,
of the interests of social groups, and of public policies. During the past twenty years, regionalization
processes have increased in Europe owing to a variety of factors (pressures by local elites, claims
advanced by regionalist movements, demands for the reform of State governance, incentives from
the European Union).
3) Regionalism. “Regionalism” may assume a variety of meanings. Here we may define it as
a political-cultural process driven by a collectivity endowed with an awareness or sense of territorial
belonging, or by elites or political movements able to mobilize and organize the cultural, political or
economic interests of a territory. For centuries often associated with a regressive ideology of
nostalgic laudatores temporis acti opposed to modernization, regionalism regained political-cultural
dynamism in the 1960s and 1970s, and then again more recently in the past twenty years. Initially,
regionalism appeared to be the ideological manifesto of marginalized and backward regions
exploited by the centre; today, it is sometimes also the mission of the richest and most developed
2
In the sense explained by the theoretical sociological tradition. See Berger and Luckmann, 1966.
If we observe phenomena at the socio-cultural or economic level, the process is also bottom-up.
See e.g. Ohmae, 1995; Sassen, 2006.
31
3
regions (as in the cases of Catalonia, Lombardy and Veneto, and Flanders).4 The most visible
embodiments of regionalism are political or ideas-driven movements, but at times outright political
parties as well, which draw on territorial identities and interests to advance claims of a varyingly
historical-cultural, political and economic nature. In some cases, such movements may even openly
challenge the authority of the Nation-State and membership thereof, demanding not only cultural
and administrative recognition, but also greater political autonomy, federalism or indeed secession,
and resorting to sometimes pacific, but sometimes also violent, means to this end. Although it may
happen that, in some of the most radical cases, regional identitary phenomena challenge national
identities, there is no necessary contrast between the one and the other. This is so for numerous
reasons. One of them is political realism5: when in its most extreme forms regionalism raises the
issue of the self-determination and self-government of the “regional” community, and therefore
claims recognition as a Nation-State in itself, distinct from the one disavowed and challenged, the
political actors propounding such regionalism are rarely able to pass the test of “political
unification”. Even less are they able to pass the test of democratic legitimation afforded by electoral
procedures: the idea of separation from the Nation-State is unlikely to achieve consensus among the
majority of the “regional population” (however difficult it is to measure phenomena of this kind).6
For this reason, secession is largely a threat used to obtain recognition and political-administrative,
cultural and economic privileges.
3. NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE REGIONAL QUESTION IN ITALY: BETWEEN
REMOVAL AND RESURGENCE
For some years in Italy there has been animated debate on the theme of the nation.7 This is a novel
development in the history of the Italian Republic. Until recently, the issue was in fact neglected
and removed by scholars, public opinion, and all the more so by the political world. There were
numerous reasons for this closure of Italian political culture towards the “national question”: the
appropriation of the national theme by the Fascist ideology and regime so dramatically condemned
by history; the tragedies provoked by twentieth-century nationalisms; the historical dominance of
two ideological doctrines (Catholicism and Communism) with strongly universalist and
internationalist vocations; and an “anti-national” attitude widespread among intellectuals, opinionmakers, and the educated class in general. It is perhaps also for these reasons that the Italian
identitary issue has been addressed from so many standpoints in the recent debate: the causes of the
weakness or non-existence of an Italian national identity; the weight of “particularism” and
4
For a map of regionalisms or regional-nationalisms and of regionalist movements in Europe see
De Winter and Tuersan, 1998; Haupt et al., 1998; Luverà, 1999; Grilli di Cortona, 2003; Caciagli,
2006.
5
Other reasons relate to the political-institutional structure, centre-periphery relations, and the
political culture of “reciprocal recognition” mentioned in the concluding section.
6
Exceptions to this general tendency, at least since the Second World War, have been the violent
dissolution of the USSR and Yugoslavia and the peaceful one of Czechoslovakia. Instead, there are
no cases relative to mass liberal-democratic regimes, despite the tensions in Canada (with Quebec),
in Belgium (between Walloons and Flemings), in Spain (especially with the Basque Country), in
France (with Corsica) or in Italy (first with Sicily, then with South Tyrol, finally with “Padania”).
On the test of political unification see Nevola, 2007a; on the problem of the democratic
legitimization of secessionist claims see Nevola, 1998.
7
For discussions of the problem and reconstructions of the scientific and public debate see Nevola,
1999; 2003c; 2003d; Cartocci, 2002; Peluffo, 2008.
32
“municipal localism” rooted in history; the scant civic sense characteristic of Italian identity;
feelings of national belonging and pride based only on history (ancient Rome or the Renaissance),
culture and art, the beauty of the landscape, or sporting triumphs; the identitary disarray and shame
provoked by defeat in the Second World War; the significance of the Resistance and anti-Fascism
for Italian national identity; the role of socio-economic modernization during the 1960s; Italy’s
international image (for an analysis and bibliographical references see Nevola, 1999; 2003a).
The factors which explain the return to the centre stage of the Italian national question are
both exogenous and endogenous: on the one hand the influence of the traumatic international
changes due to the collapse of Soviet Communism and the end of the bipolar balance of power of
the Cold War (Nevola, 2007a) with their repercussions on the Italian political, ideological and
cultural system; on the other hand there are the specific travails of Italian democracy. Principal
among the latter are the following:
1) the problem of the “distribution of costs” necessary to recast and preserve Italian
citizenship and the welfare state: this problem is related to the question of “solidarity among
citizens” belonging to the same national community and on which basis to distribute the benefits
and costs, rights and duties of a shared citizenship;
2) the discussion ongoing for a number of years on the significance and legacy of the antiFascist Resistance, which also is a mode in which the Italian national question is expressed.
Treating the Resistance as a constitutive component of the Republic and democracy, but also as a
sort of “founding myth” for the Italian democratic nation poses the problem of the historical,
political and ideal features of “a fatherland for the Italians”. Moreover, the national theme today
intersects with the problem of the full political legitimization of the post-Fascist and postCommunist parties competing to govern the country; the problem, that is, of their mutual
recognition and their rightful inclusion within a unitary framework of Italian democratic citizenship
and shared national belonging, notwithstanding their pasts of “resistance civil war” and their
“separate memories”;
3) the collapse during the 1990s of Christian Democracy, the long-standing government
party in Italy, which led to the demise of the “political unity of Catholics” and to a new public and
political protagonism of the Church. The consequent resumption of opposition between laics and
Catholics had repercussions on the political-cultural features of national identity;
4) the “defreezing” of the party system which had “held together” and structured the Italian
democracy that arose after the Second World War;
5) the political-electoral success since the 1980s of the Lega Nord (Northern League), due to
its capacity for grass-roots mobilization centred on emancipation of the “territory” (Lombardy,
Veneto, the North, the Po Valley – “Padania” in Italian), its regional identities, interests, history,
and cultural traditions. The Lega Nord’s campaigns for a federal system and its secessionist
challenge have directly and sometimes brutally threatened national unity and the sense of national
belonging. Historical (and unresolved) territorial (economic and political) cleavages between the
North and South have re-opened in concomitance with the Lega Nord’s offensive, together with the
onset of an unprecedented “Northern Question”;
6) the theme of the nation has also merged with the Italian political-cultural debate on the
need for institutional reforms: restructuring the State on a federal basis, and the government on a
presidential one, in response to the problems of legitimation and efficient operation of democratic
institutions, economic development, and of setting Italy’s public finances in order.
In general, concern with Italian national identity centres on a set of cleavages: besides
economic-financial (market-State) and ideological (right/left, anti-fascism/anti-communism,
Catholic/secular) ones, territorial cleavages are also of interest here (centre/periphery, north/south,
centralism-regionalism/federalism). That said, it should be emphasized that the salience recently
acquired by the question of Italian identity and its regional pendant is not unprecedented in Italian
33
history. It may be helpful to review in broad outline first its precedents relative to national identity,
and then those concerning the regional question.
4. THE ITALIAN NATIONAL QUESTION: HISTORICAL EXCURSUS I
Today, Italian political culture is going through what can be considered the fourth wave of the
twentieth-century debate on the Italian nation. The 1900s, in fact, were marked by three main waves
of such a debate (for a discussion see Nevola, 2003c). The first traversed monarchist, pre-Fascist
Italy when liberal political culture in particular engaged in a reconstruction of Italian history
intended to weave together a national history. However, this eventually gave way to the more
radical nationalism that arose amid the political-cultural turmoil of First World War
“interventionism”. The second wave occurred at the height of the Fascist regime: in keeping with
the doctrine of the latter, it focused on the “national-nationalist” project to reconstitute the Italian
fatherland and restore its former grandeur. It thus mixed “internal” purposes (modernization and
cohesion imposed in an authoritarian manner) with “external” ones (primacy of the nation of Rome
and the colonial empire). The third, post-Fascist, wave lasted for a brief period after the Second
World War: it inherited the fascistization of the national theme and the monstrosities (wartime and
otherwise) committed in the name of the patriotic ideal and the purity of the people. But it also
inherited the need to reconstruct a “fatherland for Italians” after the disarray of 8 September 1943,
as building a “democracy for Italians” began. The first two waves of the twentieth-century debate
will not be considered here.8 The discussion will instead be concerned with the essential features of
the third wave: that of the post-Fascist years which centred on Italian republican history.
To talk of a post-war Italian debate on the nation may seem at odds with the thesis of the
decline of the national theme after Fascism, the Second World War, and the 8th of September. In
fact, however, this only alters the historical periodization. For in the dominant political culture, the
national theme did not disappear immediately with the end of Fascism and the war; rather, it did so
gradually during the post-war reconstruction. Indeed, for a brief period of time – roughly until the
1950s – particular attention to the Italian national question accompanied the constitution of the
republic and the instauration of democracy and the party system. It was a debate which soon petered
out, however. But although short-lived, it was not devoid of importance. In this context, liberaldemocratic historiography sought to purge the idea of “nation” of its Fascist and nationalist legacy
by emphasizing a civic-democratic dimension of the nation. For example, Federico Chabod
resumed the opposition between the German and French traditions of the nation, defining the
former in naturalistic-organicist terms and the latter in political-voluntarist ones. Chabod sought to
locate the Italian nation within the French tradition: indeed, he spoke of a Franco-Italian tradition.
In Europeanist-federalist political culture, the national motif was resumed in strongly critical terms,
until Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi denied the possibility itself of reconsidering the idea of
nation separately from the experience of nationalism: the distinction between a “good national idea”
(the liberal-democratic one) and a “bad nationalism” (that of totalitarianism) was dismissed as false
and dangerously misleading.
One can discern within the post-Fascist wave of the debate on the nation a second phase
which partly overlapped with the one just mentioned but also partly followed it. The protagonists in
8
On these first two phases in the twentieth-century treatment of the Italian national question see
Busino, 1980; Lanaro, 1988; Bobbio, 1993; Scoppola, 1993; Traniello, 1993; Veneruso, 1993;
Lepre, 1994; Spadolini, 1994; Gentile, 1997; Bedeschi, 2002. For a historical reconstruction of
debates and ideas on the Italian nation in pre-unification Italy and the nineteenth century, see Di
Ciommo, 2005; and Patriarca, 2010, which covers republican Italy.
34
this case were the Catholic and Socialist-Communist political cultures. As is well known, from the
period of the Constitutional Assembly onwards the mass parties gradually imposed themselves. In
the long term, they expressed and conveyed political cultures little interested in the national theme
or equipped to deal with it (Scoppola, 1991; Traniello, 1993; Various Authors, 1997; Rusconi,
1997): the sense of belonging and national identity were rarely considered resources for political
action, owing to the robustness of the democratic institutions. Yet the mass parties also engaged
with the Italian national question. They did so at the level of ideology, but also at that of politicalorganizational action; and they did so especially in the first years of the post-war period, when they
were in search of “national legitimacy”. Because of the widening political-ideological divide
between the two main parties (DC and PCI) and because of their international alignments, there
were two contrasting “national” responses, rather than a single and shared one.
On the one hand, Communist political culture looked to the model of the “popular nation” in
opposition to the liberal notion, which it accused of confining the nation within a bourgeois, classist
and elitist vision. Through the device of the “People” as the repository of national sovereignty, the
“popular nation” was connected with the voluntarist-political conception of the nation typical of the
tradition that stemmed from Rousseau and the French Revolution. This was the Communist route,
so to speak, to the “nationalization of the masses”, of which a distinctive feature was its focus on
the elite/people relationship, with a central role assigned to the (Communist) party, and the purpose
of shifting the sense of nationhood from the inner circle of the ruling elite to the masses. It is
evident this was a design that derived from the Gramscian concept of “hegemony”.
On the other side, Catholic political culture entered the scene. The project in this case was
that of the “Catholic nation” (for an overview see Formigoni, 1998; Impagliazzo, 2004). Catholic
historiography of the post-war period thus engaged in a reinterpretation of national history which
smacked of neo-Guelphism.9 It emphasized the important role played in Italian history by cultural,
social and political forces of Catholic inspiration; and it stressed the Catholic identity of the Italian
nation. The project of creating the “Catholic nation” was intended to resolve difficulties in the
relationship between the Italian state and the Vatican due to the “Roman (or Catholic) question” and
the Church’s role at critical junctures in Italian history (unification; the Concordat; the Resistance;
relation between Christian values, mass liberal-democracy and capitalist-bourgeois ideology). This
was the Catholic route to fulfillment of the project of mass nationalization. A crucial aspect of this
concern with the national issue was the creation of a linkage between ecclesiastical authorities and
agencies of socialization (the Vatican, the parishes), on the one hand, and the politico-institutional
organization of social values and interests on the other: a linkage whose management was entrusted
to the party of the Catholics (Christian Democracy).
There thus arose a “dual nation” (“popular” on one side and “Catholic” on the other):
Italians returned “to democracy on the track of separate ‘belongings’ rather than on that of one
shared national and democratic belonging” (Scoppola, 1993:32; see also Di Nucci and Galli della
Loggia, 2003). Thereafter, with the enactment of the republican Constitution and the freezing of the
9
Neo-Guelphism was a nineteenth-century current of political thought distinctive of the Italian
Risorgimento. It is associated in particular with the philosopher, politician, and Catholic priest,
Vincenzo Gioberti, according to whom Italian unification had to be led by the Church and produce
a federal system headed by the Pope. Elements of neo-Guelphism are also present in the thought of
Alessandro Manzoni, the greatest Italian novelist of the nineteenth century and author of I Promessi
Sposi, for decades a compulsory text in Italian upper-secondary schools. The notion and the
political-ideological programme of neo-Guelphism refer to Italy of the Middle Ages and the conflict
between the “Guelph faction” (aligned with the Pope) and the “Ghibelline faction” (aligned with the
emperor) – a conflict which lacerated political life especially in Florence and was made famous by
Dante Alighieri in his Divina Commedia.
35
international system around the American and Soviet geo-ideological blocs, the national theme in
Italy progressively faded away. There now began a long season of “denationalization”, and almost
half a century would pass before the theme of the nation re-awoke from its long dormancy.
5. THE REGIONAL QUESTION IN ITALY: HISTORICAL EXCURSUS II
The debate on the Italian nation and on the identitary challenge raised by the Northern League
during the 1990s gave rise to the image of a “one and multiple” national identity (Galli della
Loggia, 1998; Nevola, 2003e). This “multiplicity” was evidenced by territorial patterns of
development and economic production, but above all (particularly in light of the focus of this
volume) by subnational or regional political cultures usually based on ethno-linguistic or partyideological features (the “red zone” versus the “white zone” of the country), communitarian
localism, and the North/South divide (Putnam, 1993; Cartocci, 2007; Diamanti, 2009; Coppola,
1997; Baccetti and Messina, 2009; Caciagli, 2010; Fedele, 2010). Emphasis on the Italian nation’s
identitarian multiplicity fuelled the regional question. In truth, the regionalist issue has been of great
importance throughout the history of the Italian Nation-State, and it was so well before the Lega
Nord became its successful political entrepreneur. Four main precedents can be distinguished.
1) Already in the early phase of Italian unification, when the typical contrast between centre
and periphery emerged, a debate developed on the institutional solution of this problem, and
therefore on how much recognition (also political) should be granted to peripheral areas (Ciuffoletti,
1994; Lepre, 1994). As is well known, national unification came about under the predominance of
the centralist Franco-Napoleonic model adopted and imposed by Piedmont. It should be borne in
mind, however, that Cavour (the architect of the Italian State) preferred an arrangement based on
self-government by the various political-territorial realities that made up the Nation-State. This
solution – its uncertain federalist nature notwithstanding – was obviously opposed to the centralist
model borrowed from Napoleonic France; and it favoured the State’s organization on the model of
Anglo-American autonomy. The centralist-unitary arrangement which instead prevailed was
strenuously advocated by Mazzini, on the grounds that any kind of division would provoke civil
war, fragmentation, and eventually Italy’s subjugation by foreign States. Mazzini’s argument (from
time to time updated) has been used as the basis for criticism of every federalism-based proposal for
the reorganization of the Italian Nation-State.
2) An important declination of Italy’s territorial diversification – one which has traversed the
entire history of unified Italy – is the North/South divide. This has long been referred to as the
“Southern Question”. According to an accredited strand of inquiry in historiography and the social
sciences, the history of the Italian unitary State has always been a history of North/South
“dualism”10: a dualism which already in the past could not be explained by either the allegedly
predatory policies (concerning labour, markets, natural resources) of the North, or by an
inconsistent idea of the Mezzogiorno as an irremediable hindrance to the country’s development
(Cafagna, 1994; Trigilia, 1992). For the period from unification to the Second World War the
multidimensional nature of the North/South territorial dualism has been highlighted, which can be
schematized as follows: a dualism due to the “development gap”; a dualism due to “difference”; and
a dualism due to “separateness” (Cafagna, 1994).
The “dualism of the development gap” relates to the wide distance in economic-industrial
development between the two areas of the country. This distance is apparent in a wide variety of
sectors (industry, rural manufacture, agriculture, urban industrial centres, financial intermediation,
10
From this point of view, the Padanian regional question has important historical roots. See
Huysseune, 2006.
36
human capital). The “difference dualism” concerns culture, also understood as customs, habits,
mentalities, and forms of religiosity. These differences affect the pace of modernization in the two
areas, and their receptiveness to changes in an industrial society. Related to such differences are a
series of features typically attributed to the southern regions: for instance, the difficulty of
eliminating the “feudal reality of extortion”, a phenomenon which has favoured the persistence of a
system of “private taxation” alongside the public one; the tendency of the Mafia to operate as a
“protection industry” in place of the public security system; the antagonism between “familistic
morality” and “public morality”. Finally, “separateness dualism” concerns the paucity of economic
relations, as well as social ones, between the two areas: “both the North and the South traded goods
with the rest of the world to a substantial extent; but they did so not at all, or almost not at all, with
each other”; for long, there were practically no migratory flows between the two areas (“internal
migration” is a recent phenomenon); “occasions for contact between people in the two parts of the
country were rare” (Cafagna, 1994:48). This also explains a certain “cultural extraneousness”
between the two areas, at least at the mass level. It was only with the introduction of military
service that a national mass linguistic system slowly developed, which was then consolidated by
compulsory elementary school and television. But whilst it is true that these dualisms have
gradually attenuated, to be borne in mind is the advent of a “sudden growth in the perception of
anthropological differences between the two parts of the country” (Cafagna, 1994:65).
3) Another significant phase in the political and cultural concern with the territorial question
and the “regional fact” occurred during the tumultuous period between the crisis of the Fascist
regime and the birth of the Italian Republic. That conjuncture was characterized by a certain
dynamism of what at that time were called “territorial autonomies” (Marchetti, 1993; Ruffilli, 1993;
Romanelli, 1995; Bonora and Coppola, 1997; Woolf, 2000). The ideas and the experiences of this
episode in political history were incorporated into the Italian Constitution, which introduced the
“region” as an administrative institution of the Italian State. Despite everything, however, the
impact of this constitutional principle of autonomy was very limited. At the time of the “party-based
foundation” of the democratic Republic, in fact, the predominant attitude was that the true and
principal instrument of autonomy and pluralism in civil society and politics consisted in the parties
and the party system.
Whilst in general the regional institution, although weak, was created in order to respond to
the country’s marked socio-economic variety and to improve the territorial efficiency of the public
administration, in some cases the regions were given greater weight and strongly enhanced by the
Constitution. I refer to the creation (between 1945 and 1963) of the so-called “special statute
regions”: Valle d’Aosta, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Sicily, and Sardinia.11 This
page in Italian regionalism’s history concerned historical-identitary “peripheries” with long political
histories behind them. In some cases, they were regional areas which, throughout the history of the
Italian Nation-State, had been characterized by strong resistance or resentment against State
centralism, or what was termed the “exploiter continent”; in other cases, they expressed problems
and tendencies towards separatism, irredentism, and annexationism; in yet other cases they were
still “contested territories” at the centre of international dynamics.
But the status of special autonomy that the Italian Constitution defined for these regions also
sprang directly from the historical conjuncture of the time. The political-institutional crisis that
erupted with the collapse of the Fascist regime and the “armistice” (1943) overwhelmed the Italian
State. Territorial unity itself de facto broke down, with evident repercussions on sovereignty, the
11
With the constitutional laws approving the regional statutes, all promulgated at the beginning of
1948, with the exception of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, which had to wait until 1963 and the resolution
of bitter international disputes on territorial issues and boundaries.
37
sense of national belonging, and national cohesion.12 In that critical conjuncture, demands for
territorial autonomy resumed, and some “special” regions were in the forefront. But why did the
Italian State, with its new Constitution, grant “special” autonomy to certain regions? And why in
particular to Valle d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily and Sardinia
(Nevola, 2003b)?
The underlying reason for this constitutional recognition was the fact that “constitutions are
not written on virgin parchment” (Clavero, 1993). The political-institutional structure of
constitutional States reflects, in fact, a balance struck between the propensity of Nation-States to
expropriate the “historical rights of territorial communities”, on the one hand, and resistance and
demands for autonomy by “historical-identitary peripheries” on the other. The Italian “special”
regions epitomize this balance. Behind the latter lay political dynamics between “centre” and
“periphery” which had accumulated over time. Although dormant in some phases, they had never
entirely subsided and, in the end, they were efficaciously “repoliticized” by political actors in a
critical conjuncture favourable to them. In other words, the regions granted special autonomy were
those which were able to affirm “at the right time” their histories and problems in regard to a
Nation-State engaged in its own political, territorial, and institutional reconstitution. They forcefully
asserted their multiethnic-linguistic character (Valle d’Aosta, Alto Adige); their peripheral location
close to sensitive and contested international borders (Valle d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, Venezia
Giulia); an insular tradition opposed to the “continent” (Sicily, Sardinia); long-standing separatist
tendencies; unresolved issues in the sense of nationhood or recognition of the central State’s
authority (Alto Adige, Sicily). The “special statutes” thus reflected regional contexts critical for the
unity of the Italian Nation-State. Put otherwise, they were responses by the nascent Italian Republic
to the problems raised for the new democratic order’s resilience and political-national cohesion by
the country’s socio-economic variety, the pressures of more or less radical autonomist movements,
and international obligations or agreements. However, they were responses to challenges of regional
autonomy which were prompted not only by the critical political conjuncture of the time but also by
difficulties in the historical structuring of the Italian Nation-State’s political space. In this sense, the
five “special statute” regions represent cases of the “survival of peripheral identity”. Not by chance,
Rokkan’s analysis – classificatory and historical-comparative – of the geopolitical-identitary map
and the “centre-periphery” structure of Europe includes the five Italian “special statute regions”,
and it traces their origin to the building of the Italian national State.13
Hence, the birth of the “special statute” regions came about in a context which we may
define of “political exceptionality”, or in a “state of exception” (in Carl Schmitt’s sense): a context,
that is, in which the very survival and political-territorial integrity of a Nation-State is at stake. Such
regions, in short, arose from an encounter between critical contingent political factors and more
“structural” historical-political ones.
4) An ulterior phase of debate and political initiatives on the regional issue, which preceded
the one now in progress, occurred during the 1970s. The constitutional provision on the
(“ordinary”) regional administrations was implemented in those years; the Italian regions thus
began to become, especially in administrative terms, the “realities” that we know today. There were
12
On this critical phase of interregnum or “suspended statehood” see Incisa di Camerana, 1996. See
also Aga Rossi, 1998; Galli della Loggia, 1996.
13
In Rokkan’s terminology, the five special statute regions are “historico-identitary peripheries”:
“interface peripheries”, i.e. territories exposed to crosswise international pressures (Valle d’Aosta,
Alto Adige, Trieste); “external (Mediterranean) peripheries”, i.e. geographically remote areas
situated on the margins of Western Europe and exposed to the influence of a single political centre
(Sicily, Sardinia); “peripheral enclaves”, i.e. areas with a culture different from that of the territories
surrounding them (Friuli). See Rokkan, 1999.
38
two main factors that gave impetus to the implementation of the constitutional articles devoted to
the regions. Firstly, a certain effervescence of regionalism, of movements to enhance local or
regional traditions, usages and customs: the ethno-regional wind then blowing through most of
Europe also affected Italy. Secondly, the success and consolidation of the PCI in some regions: in
this case, “regionalization” as the administrative reform of the Italian Nation-State was due, on the
one hand, to the PCI’s request for implementation of the constitutional provisions so that it could
capitalize on its success in the administrative elections held in some regions through the
government of institutions endowed with effective powers; and on the other, to the willingness of
the parties in the majority coalition (above all the DC) to offer the largest opposition party, then
undergoing political-electoral growth, compensation for its persistent exclusion from the national
government. This, moreover, was during a period of great difficulty for Italian democracy
(economic crisis, domestic terrorism, the “strategy of tension”), and it led to the (short-lived)
experience of the “governments of national solidarity” against the consociative background of the
“historic compromise” between the DC and the PCI. However, this “regionalization” process did
not yield the results that some expected from the reforms of the 1970s. More significant changes did
not occur until the 1990s: the years, according to some commentators, of the demise of the
“Republic of the parties” and of the birth of a “democracy of the regions”, as well as a “democracy
of citizens”. Thus we come to the question of the Italian national identity today, and to the
challenge of “leghist regionalism”.
However much the Italian regions have been “invented” or are the result of statisticaladministrative engineering, and however much they are the products of artificial “operations” with
little concern for historical-cultural criteria or the density of socio-economic relations, they by now
“exist” and animate the Italian political scene.
6. ITALIAN DEMOCRACY AND THE CRISIS OF THE PARTY SYSTEM: THE
IDENTITARY CHALLENGE OF “LEGHISMO PADANO” AND THE REDISCOVERY OF
THE NATIONAL TIE
The political events of the past fifteen-twenty years have profoundly altered the balances, cleavages
and overall physiognomy of Italian democracy. Whilst it is improper to talk of the advent of a
“Second Republic”, it is certain that the “First Republic” has become almost unrecognizable. This is
above all due to major changes in the party landscape and to the destructuring of the party-political
system. At least in regard to its intensity, this is an Italian peculiarity with respect to the main
European democracies (if not another version of the Italian “anomaly”) (Nevola, 2003a; 2003d).
To grasp this “particularity” it is useful to resume Lipset and Rokkan’s hypothesis (Lipset
and Rokkan, 1967) that the European party systems born in the 1920s have shown an impressive
continuity over time. They have done so because of a phenomenon of “freezing” which the authors
observed until their time (the 1960s), and which thereafter continued at least until the end of the
1980s. With some rare but partial exceptions (Belgium, Ireland, Holland and the United Kingdom),
the “freezing” of party systems has persisted until the present day. But not in Italy14, which is
instead a case of a democracy where there has been a “defreezing” of the party system, and in some
respects also a change in socio-political cleavages.
14
Mair (1998) maintains that a “freezing” of party systems has come about in the democracies since
the 1990s. Mair’s arguments and examples may support the idea that the “freezing” of cleavages
and party systems is not permanent. But this does not alter the fact that since the Second World War
Italy has provided the only example of an almost complete “defreezing”.
39
To gain an idea of the range of the phenomenon it suffices to consider the “vote-gathering
capacity” of the party system that arose after the Second World War (see Annex 1) (for a European
comparison, see Kitschelt, 1997). This indicator of the “degree of structuring” of the Italian party
system comprises the percentages of votes obtained in general elections by the principal parties
belonging to the so-called “constitutional arch” which created the Republic, regardless of whether
they belong to the government or to the opposition (including the formations resulting from splits in
the original parties and their subsequent renaming or redefining).
Since the elections of 1994, the vote-gathering capacity of the “traditional” party system has
more than halved: whilst until the 1987 elections it oscillated between 85% and 93% of the total of
votes cast, in 1992 it fell to 75%; and since 1994 has not even amounted to half of the total votes.
More than half of votes have progressively shifted to political parties which did not exist in the
previous half century of the “frozen” republican party system based on the “constitutional arch” or
which were excluded from this latter.
The political significance and repercussions of the destructuring of the party system have
been of no little account for Italian democracy. The party system, in fact, played a major role in
reconstructing and organizing collective Italian life which emerged disfigured from the Fascist
period, from the war, and from its traumatic aftermath (Scoppola, 1991; Cotta, 1994; Calise, 1994;
Mastropaolo, 1996; Lepre, 1999). As the constructors of public institutions and distributors of
material and symbolic resources, the parties and the party system were also decisive in the
establishment and consolidation of democracy in Italy. In particular, they acted as channels of
socialization to democratic politics and as agencies of democratic pedagogy.
Besides democratizing the country, the party system also undertook the task of “holding
together” a profoundly divided and lacerated country diversified at all levels. From the post-war
period onwards, particularly insidious was the country’s cleavage along political-ideological lines
and its international position. Although Catholics, moderate and progressive laics, socialists and
communists were united in learning and defending democratic values, they were interpreters and
bearers of very different, often incompatible, world-views and conceptions of democracy
(Scoppola, 1991; Lanaro, 1992; Lepre, 1999; Di Nucci, and Galli della Loggia, 2003). In the years
of the Resistance and the Constituent process that gave rise to the Republic, these divisions were
kept under control first by the common priority of liberation from Fascism, and then by an “identity
pact” which consisted in shared anti-Fascism as the basis of the Republic – a pact expressed in the
form of the so-called “constitutional arch”. This latter comprised the parties engaged in the
definition and subscription of a republican and democratic constitution (Democrazia Cristiana,
Partito Comunista Italiano, Partito Socialista Italiano, Partito d’Azione, Partito Repubblicano
Italiano, Partito Liberale Italiano), and it established anti-Fascism as the criterion for republican
inclusion.
This party system continued, for better or for worse, until the early 1990s. And it conferred
political concreteness and institutional form to the “identity pact” forged for the Italians by the
political forces. Although the parties to the “identitary-constitutional pact” adhered to “partisan”
positions and allegiances, the party system was able to create a “common space of mutual
recognition” within which the political and ideological struggle among the contending parties could
take place. On these bases the party system acted as a surrogate for a sense of common “national
belonging” otherwise considered typically uncertain in Italian history. The party system, in other
words, became an essential factor of national integration and unity.15 Analysis of the function of the
party system in Italian politics therefore brings to light, besides the democratic question, also the
15
It thus assumes the form of a “functional alternative” to that “agreement on the fundamentals”
made possible by a successful process of State-building and Nation-building in both continental
Europe and countries outside that context (Farneti, 1983:220).
40
national one. The interweaving between democracy and nation, often denied by political analysts16,
thus regains (political and explanatory) importance in Italy as well.
The destructuring of the party system in the 1990s therefore generated two major perils for
Italian politics: one concerned the resilience of democracy, the other that of national unity and
integration. In the former case, although the democratic order changed, it did not collapse:
democracy did not fall victim to the end of the party system on which it (at least partly) depended.
The latter case is somewhat more complicated.
The essential precondition for the “democracy of the parties” was national integration. When
the party system collapsed, on what new basis could a “democracy of citizens” – which was
proposed in the early 1990s to take the place of the “republic of the parties”17 – fulfill the
precondition of every democratic system, namely national unity and integration (Nevola, 2003d)?
The theme of the nation thus returned to the Italian cultural and political agenda, also on the wave
of the threats of national disintegration raised by leghismo padano (“Padanian leaguism”).18
Notwithstanding its serious implications, however, the Lega Nord’s challenge was more a
symptom of the crisis, an intervening factor, than its cause. But the seriousness of the “national
alarm” acquires full significance when viewed in light of the risk of a void in the sense of nation
made acute by the destructuring of the party system; that is, by the break-up of the political
mechanism which had hitherto contributed to national political unity. Disparate secessionist claims,
“anti-political” attitudes, the ambiguous forms of “selfish solidarism” associated with leghismo
padano, found fertile terrain within this vacuum.19
In this framework, during the 1990s, alongside the issue of transition from a “republic of
parties” to a “democracy of the citizens”, an unprecedented repoliticization of the “regional
territory” occupied the central stage: from a “republic of the parties” to a “democracy of the
regions”. The regional theme returned to the fore – in politics, among public opinion-makers, and in
scientific inquiry. This happened according to interpretations of the territorial issue that have
typically given most prominence to the new “Northern Question” or to the disruptive phenomenon
of leghismo. There thus resurfaced scenarios of federalism or regional-local polycentrism generated
by programmes to reform the State and, above all, by the political challenges raised by the Lega
Nord.
This is not the place for a detailed reconstruction of the phenomenon of leghismo padano in
its various aspects: its origins in the Veneto region during the 1970s, the (Lombard) leadership of
Bossi with his skilful maneuvering on both the regional and national political fronts, the ideology,
organization and electoral results of the Lega Nord, its programmes and its language, etc.
(Diamanti, 1993; Biorcio, 1997; 2010; Cento Bull and Gilbert, 2001; Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro,
2002; Loiero, 2003; Huysseune, 2006; Pasi and Pedrazzini, 2007; Jori, 2009). Instead, of principal
interest here is the fact that the Lega Nord is characterized by a political culture somewhat
extraneous or minoritarian with respect to the tradition of the Italian Republic (but apparent in the
16
Examples of this denial are Salvadori, 2001; Bobbio, 1995. In the past, and still to some extent
today, political science studies on the Italian party system (and/or on the “agreement on
fundamentals” based on the anti-Fascism of the constitutional arch) have largely neglected the
importance of the theme of the nation for Italian democracy.
17
For a political-cultural formulation of the thesis of the “democracy of citizens” see Scoppola,
1991. For a criticism of this interpretation see Nevola, 2003d; see also Fedele, 1994.
18
In the early 1990s it was even feared that Italy might cease being a nation, given that nations are
not indestructible. See Rusconi, 1993.
19
All this against the background of a general “democratic malaise” provoked by a democracy
bereft of “enchantment”: a phenomenon which united Italy with large part of the contemporary
democratic regimes. See Nevola, 2007c.
41
history of national unification and during the first half century of unified Italy). It is a political
culture of which an essential (but not the only) ingredient is the “politicization” of the North/South
territorial cleavage and of the “reasons” for what one may call “Lombardy-Veneto nordism”.20 The
“Northern Question” has thus arisen.
It is in this setting that the Lega’s strong emphasis on the territory-based identitary question
– albeit declined in different ways – can be explained. The Lega’s identitary focus has always been
on the so-called “Padania” (the Po Valley with its historical, ethno-cultural features, and economic
interests). Whence derives the offensive (though today relatively muted) against the primacy of the
Italian national identity; but also against the South, against globalization or a centralist Europe
based on the Nation-State, and against multiculturalism or the increasing presence of immigrant
communities (especially if non-European or of non-Christian culture and religion).
Compared with other types of Italian regionalism, that of the Lega Nord is distinguished by
two further features: it does not concern a single region but extends (expansively and progressively)
across several regions;21 its political-territorial base does not consist solely of peripheral or marginal
areas: the Lega is also successful in dynamic territories of the Italian socio-economic structure, ones
rich with political and civic traditions (principally Veneto and Lombardy).
As evidenced, for instance, by research at the Fondazione Agnelli of Turin, the origins of the
Lega’s notion of Padania date back to 1989.22 Although definition of its boundaries remains
uncertain and ambiguous, Padania is a typical case of the “invention of tradition” and of a
“homeland” (Heimat) (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983; Various Authors, 2007), with all the
associated collective rituals, symbols, recreational, cultural and economic associations, and grassroots social and political mobilization. Over the years, the goal of self-government, or at least some
degree of autonomy for the North, has been pursued with a variety of means: pressure for
institutional reforms which convert a centralistic Nation-State into a federal system; demands for
the granting of a “special statute” or the devolution of greater powers to the Padania regions; protest
against fiscal centralism and claims for fiscal federalism; the threat of secession.23
In this way the Lega Nord has achieved good – sometimes outstanding – political and
electoral results. For instance, already in the 1995 administrative elections it was the first party in
northern Italy, with over 20% of the votes. It has been part of the government coalition in several
legislatures (the centre-right governments headed by Berlusconi in 1994, 2001-06, 2008-today) or
part of the centre-left parliamentary majority (the majority which supported the 1994-96
20
The historical and political-cultural father of this nordism was Carlo Cattaneo. See Morra, 1993;
Ciuffoletti, 1994; Gangemi, 1994. Cattaneo, not by chance, has been cited by Gianfranco Miglio – a
political scientist and the ideologue of an important phase of leghismo under Bossi. A scholar of
federalism, of State doctrine, a theoretician of the “decisionism” propounded by Carl Schmitt,
Miglio is an intellectual who has traversed most of the political history of the Italian Republic. He
was one of the founders of political science in post-war Italy and on several occasions has been
adviser to Italian political leaders in government: initially in the area of the DC; then, in 1980s, with
Craxi (PSI). See Ferrari, 1993; Gangemi, 2003.
21
Of interest from this point of view are the Lega Nord’s recent electoral results (2009 elections for
the European Parliament, regional and local elections of 2010), especially in important regions of
central or “red” Italy (above all Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany), historic strongholds of the parties
on the left. See Jori, 2009.
22
See Various Authors, 1992; 1993; Pacini, 1994; See also Crainz, 1994. The Fondazione Agnelli
is a private study and research centre (mainly economic-social and political), connected with the
Agnelli, the leading family of Italian capitalism and owners of the Fiat industrial group.
23
For a framing of Northern League secessionism in the political theory on secession see Nevola,
1998.
42
“technocratic government” headed by Dini). Since 1994 the Lega has been one of the regionalist
parties with the largest and most continuous representations in the European Parliament (Caciagli,
2006). Further demonstrating the Lega’s electoral success is its recent electoral performance: in the
general election of 2008 it obtained more than 8% of votes nationwide; in the European elections of
2009 more than 10%, and in the regional ones of 2010 almost 13%. In all three cases it was the third
largest party at national level behind the two “pole-parties” (Popolo della Libertà and Partito
Democratico). This success is all the more marked considering the results achieved in the Padania
constituencies, where the Lega is effectively present as a political party and acts as a political
interpreter and entrepreneur at the same time, and where it is often the party which obtains the
largest electoral consensus.24
If a regional identity also consists in the particular party-electoral pattern assumed by a
certain territory, we may say that the Lega Nord has been able to create a Padanian regional
identity, at least to some extent. Aside from certain “special statute” regions, nowhere else in Italy
are there expressions of political subculture equally able to politicize a territorial identity (not even
the strong Communist and Christian Democrat subcultures of past decades). A party’s politicalelectoral success depends, as we know, on numerous and diverse factors, which cannot be itemized
here. Nevertheless, the characteristics of Lega’s success suggest that it has also been due to the
movement’s capacity (organizational, ideological, symbolic) to mobilize resources and political
consensus around the identitary question of the Padanian territories.
The Lega’s identitary politics find fertile ground in the persistence of certain marked
“territorial differences” (of an economic, civic-political and administrative type) – although it is
sometimes only by means of mental stereotypes that such differences are related to a simple
North/South dualism. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the Lega has been able to give politicalidentitarian voice (ethnocultural, symbolic, economic) to important regions in northern Italy. In a
certain sense, it has retranslated, to the advantage of these latter, the North/South opposition rooted
in the history of united Italy, so that a “Northern Question” has arisen in contrast to the more
traditional “Southern Question”. Padania may perhaps be only a “promised land”; yet it may be
precisely because it is a “promised land” that it is able to arouse identification with, and a sense of
collective belonging to, a territory – to the point of provoking demands for self-government.
7. CONCLUDING REMARKS
7.1 ON THE ITALIAN CASE
Notwithstanding a profoundly different political and cultural context, both in Italy and
internationally, on observing the issues central to the recent debate on the Italian nation, one is
struck by how closely they resemble those of the past (Nevola, 1999; 2003c): the fatherland as
opposed to nationalism; the supranational or post-national superseding of the nation; the civicpolitical nation as opposed to the ethno-cultural nation; the historical-political continuity or
discontinuity of the fatherland of the Italians; North/South dualism; the scant sense of national
belonging that characterizes some territorial areas; and federalism. The same partly applies to other
topics: the need to treat the national question on the two separate levels of elite culture and mass
culture; the contrast between the “Catholic nation” and the “popular nation”; the relationship
between national, regional and European identities. This persistence of themes from the past history
24
For instance, in those constituencies, the Lega Nord obtained more than 30% of the votes in the
2009 European elections.
43
of united Italy means that, still today, they concern unresolved, though updated, issues in Italian
collective life.
These themes from a “past which returns”, however, are flanked by newer ones which bear
the imprints of the social, political, cultural and also generational changes that exploded with the
transformation of Italian democracy in the 1990s. Some of them warrant especial mention.
1) The theme of the nexus between nation and democracy. After the Second World War this
nexus was regarded as vital (though amid numerous qualifications); in subsequent decades,
however, the virtuous relationship between democracy and nation was liquidated: the nation was
reduced to an artificial construct wanted and exploited by certain elites; national identity and
belonging were regarded as unnecessary and as harmful for democratic politics; the nation was
equated with the aggressive, racist and bellicose nationalism (fascist, but not only) of the twentieth
century. Today, instead, the idea that a national identity could be a positive condition for a “good
democracy” is once again apparent in Italian political culture.
2) The theme closely connected with the previous one, that the fatherland for Italians can
today assume the form (in a transitional phase between the “first” and “second” Republics) of a
“constitutional patriotism” (Nevola, 2003a).
3) The theme of the identity of Padania and the unprecedented expression of the territorial
cleavage in terms of the “Northern Question”.
4) The theme of the possibility of an Italian national identity in a period characterized by
increasing intra- and extra-European immigration and therefore by the growing presence of other
cultures in Italy as well: a circumstance which obliges to recast the national question in light of
problems of socio-cultural, religious and political integration in contexts often denoted with the
(ambiguous) term “multiculturalism”.
7.2 THE “STRENGTH” OF NATIONAL IDENTITY
Several studies have examined the impact of sub-national political culture on Nation-State
cohesion: some have argued that sub-national political cultures with an ethno-linguistic basis “used
to provoke and will probably provoke more and more centrifugal pressures” (Caciagli, 1988:454).
Such sub-national cultures manifest certain types of political antagonism. However, history has
shown that such antagonism has not always taken the form of radical and violent claims. That is due
in part to repression, coercive integration and the political-cultural socialization skills of the NationState. But it is also due to the success of “recognition politics” between centre and peripheries. A
collective identity is formed, in part, by “recognition, un-recognition or misrecognition” by others;
from this derives the political importance of the “struggle for recognition” in the formation
processes of collective identities (Taylor, 1991; Habermas, 1993). The presence of appropriate
political institutions able to regulate a plurality of collective identities is essential for such a
reciprocal recognition to come about. The regionalization of Nation-State structures, federal
systems and consociational political systems in many cases satisfy the need for reciprocal
recognition. Political arrangements of this kind are also able to respond to “centrifugal
regionalisms” whose most radical claims for independence often conceal a strategic-political aim to
achieve more moderate goals. It seems that this is the Italian case of the Lega Nord and its claims
for “Padania”.
Success in reciprocal recognition between Nation-State and regional areas also depends on
the role of the political elites: their behaviours and attitudes strongly influence the quality of
national integration and the recognition of national and sub-national territorial identities. However,
political-institutional solutions and the attitudes of political elites must be sustained also by a
political culture that operates at mass level as well; a political culture able to create a feeling of
44
“us”, of shared belonging to a national community. This political culture must in particular create a
national identity able to contain the specific identities of the territories that form a Nation-State.
Anyway, some cases of centrifugal regionalism still exist: regionalism characterized by strong
historical-cultural rootedness (often centred on language or on religion) and by radical claims (for
self-government, political independence, control of economic and fiscal resources, identitarian
closing of the citizenship system). This is perhaps the case of Belgium. What prospects of success
does this kind of regionalism have?
In Europe, the past few years have seen the emergence of a thesis that views the “region” as
a political-territorial and economic subject able to affirm its identitary centrality vis-à-vis the
Nation-State. This has been due to the presumed surrender of the Nation-State and to the political
malaise afflicting the national democracies. National politics have been discredited by corruption or
by the failure to find satisfactory answers to citizens’ fears (economic crisis, unemployment, crime,
immigration, cultural diversity). But this thesis of the identitary centrality of the region compared to
the Nation-State is not convincing. It does not persuade at least when it implies that authoritative
bonds (“political obligations”) should be shifted from the Nation-State to the regional space. In this
case, in fact, the region should acquire the political characteristics of a Nation-State, but the chances
of this happening are very small. This identitary-territorial change of authoritative bonds would
require demanding conditions and political resources very difficult to find for the actors seeking to
achieve this goal.
The thesis of the region’s identitary centrality focuses on a perspective with a solid
historical-political basis and, mostly, on the contingent and changing nature of forms of political
unification. But the crux of this view is that, in the current historical-political setting (especially in
democracies), the “region” (or similar “subnational” as well as transnational aggregations) seems
unable to pass the “political unification test”. Exceptions are the centrifugal phenomena of Eastern
Europe that arose from the communist system (examples are the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia
and Czechoslovakia); as regards Western democratic Europe, Belgium is the case to keep under
particular observation.
What a “region” lacks is not a common political culture or a cultural identity (which are
sometimes even stronger than those of the Nation-State) but a political identity, the translation of
the collective identity into binding loyalty (“political obligation”), mostly when multiple identities
are exposed to “belonging conflicts” (Nevola, 2007a). Consequently, neither can the notions of a
“Europe of regions” nor of “regionalization of the globalized space” challenge the Nation-State
model. The centuries-long formation process of the Nation-State helps to understand that the
Nation-State’s success lies in the strength and distinctiveness of its identitary system. This also
explains why the Nation-State is able to respond to critical moments, when it proves its ability to
draw on surprising resources in order to deal with identitary challenges (Nevola, 2007b).
The Nation-State is still the political-territorial and symbolical space in which political
premises and instruments are available to manage public problems authoritatively. It is probably for
this reason that citizens seem particularly attached to the Nation-State in comparison with other
political-territory spaces (Haller, 2003).
7.3 THE “VALUE” OF NATIONAL IDENTITY
The continuing centrality of the Nation-State and national identity also depend on the “good
reasons” in their favour. These “good reasons” are linked to democracy viewed as a “political
value” (or as a “meta public good”). Historically, the Nation-State has been the “container” of
democracy, that is, the political space in which democratization has taken place. The Nation-State is
obviously not the only historical container of democracy. I am not saying that the Nation-State is
45
the only environment favourable to democracy; I am saying that: 1) the Nation-State is the
arrangement best able to receive and develop mass liberal democracy; 2) the establishment and
consolidation of such a democracy take place in a political space that has already been “unified”.
The type of unity may change over time, but unification remains the necessary condition for
democracy (Rokkan, 1970; Dahl, 1989; Linz and Stepan, 1996; Nevola, 2007a).
Democracy is, among other things, the acceptance of differences and divisions; it includes
freedom, pluralism and competition. The individuals and groups that form a democracy may divide
and enter into conflict with each other once they have defined “who they are”: in other words, after
they have established themselves as the “we” that comprises the variety of ideas and interests
sustained by those individuals and groups. This close and virtuous interdependence between the
“unified political space” (Nation-State) and the “pluralist political space” (democracy) not only
concerns the moment of “genesis” of a democratic system. The subsequent practice of democratic
citizenship itself requires the precious resource of national identity so that it can be nourished and
provide citizens with “benefits and rights”. This argument is related to the view of democracy as a
“meta public good”; and like any other public good, democracy entails “costs and duties” in its
production, allocation and distribution.25 Maintaining and nourishing the “benefits” provided by a
democratic citizenship system (the variety of rights and goods) requires that a political community
has members willing to assume the relative “costs”. On this view, the citizenship benefits/costs
balance refers to a “critical line”. The problem of the “critical line” formulated in terms of
costs/benefits and their balance shows that democracy possesses a “utilitarian structure” for the
production and allocation of public goods. “Democratic utilitarianism” may sometimes be
inefficient or ineffective, or at any rate unable to achieve the objective pursued. “Democratic
authoritarianism” (Almond and Powell Jr., 1978) is an alternative to the democratic utilitarianism
sometimes employed by democratic regimes. But there is a further resource that a democratic
community can use before it resorts to solutions of “democratic authoritarianism”: it is precisely
this resource that is denoted with the notion of “political identity”. By virtue of their “belonging
resources”, groups and individuals assume costs and duties in the production of democratic
citizenship which exceed their own benefits and rights: that is, they “pay” in terms of attitudes and
conducts, time and money for others unable or unwilling to do so. An important role in such a
situation is played by reciprocal recognition and loyalty, solidarity and trust.26
The “sense of belonging”, as we know, may assume different features, some more
“universalistic”, others more “particularistic”. But one of its typical forms is certainly the nationbased one. This form has historically predominated in the Western world, at least in the last two or
three centuries. National identity is a case of political identity on a territorial basis, a successful
historical case that has prevailed over its territory-identitary rivals. Although a national identity
requires the existence of “shared” elements (of various kinds),27 this does not entail that a national
political community is necessarily “homogenous”, “totalitarian” or “exclusive”. Sharing and
identification reflect the existence of a “connective texture” (socio-cultural, ethical-political,
25
I refer to such “benefits” as: freedom of expression; neutrality and certainty of the law;
representation, political equality and pluralism; social benefits and services to ensure minimum
levels of welfare and social security; and to such “costs” as: tolerance of difference; legal behaviour
and compliance with norms; political participation and democratic vigilance; payment of taxes and
voluntary work. See Nevola, 1994.
26
The intimate connection between democracy, trust, collective identity and nation has been rightly
emphasized by Eisenstadt, 1999.
27
One typically thinks of language and cultural traditions, religion and moral systems, usages and
customs, ethnicity and territory, political, administrative, legal, economic ideas and institutions,
ideals and sense of a common “destiny”.
46
institutional, symbolic) resulting from “strings” of different colours. The role of such a texture is to
hold together even pluralist and conflictual societies like the contemporary ones. The doctrine of
“democratic patriotism” responds to these conditions.28
In other words, it is clear that not all Nation-States are democratic. Nor are they all fertile
ground for democracy: in so far as they are successful political units, they are necessary but not
sufficient conditions for the birth and growth of democratic systems. Moreover, not all types of
national identity prove to be fruitful resources for democracy. National identity may in fact assume,
and has done so in history, different features. In the past as well as the present we find national
identities that are closed, exclusive, monist, mono-ethnic. These are national identities “dissonant”
or “regressive” with respect to the principles of democratic pluralism. However, since the end of the
eighteenth century (see the United States, France) an open and inclusive type of national identity
has progressively imposed itself – also in regard to ethnic and cultural differences. This is the case
of the so-called “civic-political” nation, the “nation of citizens” or “constitutional patriotism”.29
Despite its problems and its limitations, the Nation-State, with its political-identitary profile,
has proved its ability to respond positively to the requirements of democracy. In many cases the
Nation-State has passed the democratization test. By contrast, the democratic test seems more
problematic for the political project of radical independentist regionalism. Some regionalisms claim
to give life to new political unities through the separation of a regional area from the Nation-State.
Opposed to the multicultural, multi-ethnic or multi-national features of the Nation-State, they
emphasize their own particular identities characterized by cultural or ethnic homogeneity. If
successful, this kind of regional claim would create political regimes failing the democracy test. It
would do so because along this route political regimes of the “ethnocratic” type would emerge
characterized by a strong liberal-democratic deficit; or “ethnodemocratic” regimes characterized by
a milder liberal-democratic deficit. A further case still remains: that of regionalisms which seek to
create new political units open to the many faces of democratic pluralism. But in this case their
claims for self-determination and self-government cannot be coherently founded on solely ethnic or
historical-cultural homogeneous bases. These would be regionalisms put themselves forward as new
democratic Nation-States on a smaller scale. This scenario poses the problem of the “dimensions”
of the political democratic unit: a classic problem in both history and democracy doctrines
(Althusius, Rousseau, Madison) (Dahl, 1989).
Probably the best argument for the advocates of “small-scale democracy” is that in small
units political processes are closer to citizens and it is possible to achieve a more immediate and
solid collective solidarity. Even presuming that these positive aspects are welcome for the equality
of a democratic system, they still entail other problematic aspects for collective life: fragmentation
of the international system into numerous small units, which increases the likelihood of conflict;
greater difficulties in the governance of international problems; the weakness of political units in
their relationships with other units; low structural and functional differentiation of society; limits on
the ability to produce public goods responding to the current standards of contemporary developed
societies. Finally, the good principle of the proximity of citizens to the decision-making system can
be realized within a federal arrangement as well.
In the end, centrifugal regionalism exhibits a certain democratic ambiguity. The Italian case
of the Lega Nord confirms the democratic ambiguities of centrifugal regionalism with its oscillation
between neo-democratic populism and neo-communitarianism, between federalism and
secessionism, ethnocracy, ethno-democracy and democracy. But the Lega Nord also exemplifies the
28
For a socio-political analysis of the bonds of patriotic identity and national belonging see the
important and unjustly neglected Grodzins (1956) and its original distinction between democratic
patriotism and totalitarian patriotism. See Nevola, 2007a.
29
On the concept of constitutional patriotism see Nevola, 2007a.
47
tactical ability of a political movement which seems able to obtain recognition as a territorial force
of both “government and opposition” at the national level. “Padania” gives identitary energy to
northern leghismo, but its transformation into a “promised land” has also become an effective
instrument in the able hands of a political entrepreneur. “Padania” identitary claims introduce a
“potential of uncertainty” into national politics, both for opponents and allies (Nevola, 1990): a
“potential” that seems to be fruitful for the political fortune of the Lega Nord but not necessarily for
the regional and national quality of Italian democracy. Considering that “Padania” does not have a
unitary (political) history, nor a unitary culture, nor a proper common language, this idea has not
failed to engender a mobilization of feelings and interests. But secession is another story.
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51
ANNEX 1. Vote-gathering capacity of the party of the “Constitutional Arch”. Political elections
1946-2008, Chamber of Deputies (1994-2001 only proportional quota). Percentages.
1946*
1948
1953
1958
1963
PCI
18.9 PCI + PSI 31.0 PCI
22.6 PCI
22.7 PCI
25.3
7.1 PSI
12.7 PSI
14.2 PSI
13.8
PSI
20.7 PSDI
DC
35.2 DC
48.5 PSDI
4.5 PSDI
4.6 PSDI
6.1
PLI
6.8 PLI
3.8 DC
40.1 DC
42.3 DC
38.3
PRI
4.4 PRI
2.5 PLI
3.0 PLI
3.5 PLI
7.0
PRI
1.6 PRI
1.4 PRI
1.4
Total
86.0 Total
92.9 Total
84.5 Total
88.7 Total
91.9
1968
1972
1976
1979
1983
PCI
26.9 PCI
29.9
27.1 PCI
34.4 PCI
30.4 PCI
PSI + PSDI 14.5 PSI
9.6 PSI
9.6 PSI
9.8 PSI
11.4
DC
39.1 PSDI
5.1 PSDI
3.4 PSDI
3.8 PSDI
4.1
PLI
5.8 DC
32.2
38.7 DC
38.7 DC
38.3 DC
PRI
2.0 PLI
2.9
3.9 PLI
1.3 PLI
1.9 PLI
PSIUP
4.4 PRI
2.9 PRI
3.1 PRI
3.0 PRI
5.1
PSIUP
1.9
89.2 Total
87.2 Total
86.3
Total
92.7 Total
90.5 Total
1987
1992
1994
1996
2001
PCI
26.6 PDS
21.1 DS
16.6
16.1 PDS
20.4 DS
PSI
14.3 RC
5.6 RC
6.0 RC
8.6 RC
5.0
PSDI
2.9 PSI
0.4 PSI
13.6 PSI
2.2 PSI
1.0
Pop-Prodi
DC
34.3 PSDI
2.7 PPI – Patto
6.8 Margherita 14.5
PLI
2.1 DC
15.7 CCD/CDU 5.8 CCD/CDU 3.2
29.7 Segni
PRI
3.7 PLI
2.9
Rinnov. It. 4.3 PDCI
1.7
PRI
4.4
Dem.Europea 2.4
Total
83.9 Total
75.0 Total
44.3 Total
47.0 Total
44.4
2006
2008
Ulivo
31.3 PD 31.3 33.2
RC
5.4 UDC
5.6
La Rosa
La Sinistranel Pugno
2.6 L’Arcobaleno 3.1
PDCI
2.3 Partito
UDEURSocialista
1.0
Popolari
1.4 Sinistra Critica 0.5
I Socialisti
0.3 PLI
0.3
UDC
6.8 Partito Com. dei
Dem. Crist.
Lavoratori
0.6
- Nuovo PSI 0.8
PLI
0.3
Total
51.6 Total
44.3
52
THE BELGIAN FEDERAL SYSTEM:
AN UNSTOPPABLE CENTRIFUGAL DYNAMIC?
Patrick Stouthuysen (*) and Theo Jans (°)
(*) Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Vakgroep Politieke Wetenschappen
(°) Maastricht, European Institute of Public Administration
1. INTRODUCTION
Outsiders often are shrewd observers. In the international press the collapse of Belgium is
announced at regular times (for example The Economist, 2007; 2008). The Flemish
people usually do not get upset from such prophecies of doom; they take it for granted
that this is not going to happen. Yet maybe they are too closely involved in order not to
lose track of the situation. Those outsiders possibly notice a pattern they do not see:
maybe Belgium’s future indeed is not so bright after all.
It is understood that the outside world is not always well informed. When reading
the story of the relationship between two politicians from opposed language communities
– the Flemish Liberal Rik Daems and the Walloon Socialist Sophie Pécriaux – in the
international press a few years ago, it seemed as if the outside world simply did not
understand the intra- Belgian relations at all (Le Point, 2006; 2007). When reading about
the highly remarkable way the situation was framed – the budding happiness of Flemish
leading man Rik and Walloon activist Sophie again reunited a split country, as a
consequence of which many Belgians started looking for a partner on the other side of the
language boundary – it could only be hoped that whatever is published about other
countries, is more based on factual knowledge.
Yet indirectly the way in which this fait divers is reported, reveals a lot about the
intra-Belgian relations. The correspondents of the Brussels-based foreign newspapers do
not speak Dutch and hence are reliant on the Francophone press. If they assess the
Belgian situation more tragically than the Flemish are used to, this particularly reveals the
mind of the French-speaking compatriots. Apparently they much more bear in mind the
possible disintegration of the country, and therefore consistently observe everything that
happens in Dutch-speaking Belgium from this perspective. The argument often used that
this simply is a matter of wrong perception is actually a non-issue. It is exactly this
misrepresentation that makes up a first reason for scepticism regarding the future of the
Belgian federation.
53
2. THE ABSENCE OF A SHARED PUBLIC OPINION
Belgium does not have a shared public opinion. The Flemish and Walloon people do not
read each other’s newspapers, nor do they watch each other’s television stations.
Nowadays even Flemish people interested in politics hardly know about the major issues
in the other part of the country, while the French-speaking people equally do not
comprehend the issues that keep the Flemish region awake. Is this a problem? Not
necessarily. It depends from what you expect the Belgian federation to do. Both Frenchspeaking and Dutch-speaking people can perfectly live in harmony in two separate
communities that hardly seem to be in contact with each other, provided their
housekeeping and accounts are also kept separate. The moment one expects more from
the federation, then indeed there is a problem. If two parties build a welfare state which
implies continuous repartitions, as is the case today, then you need more mutual
connection and alliance.
Talking about a welfare state assumes there is a nation. The Swedish winner of the
Noble Prize for economics Gunnar Myrdal predicted that national identities would
become more relevant once the provided social services expanded (Myrdal, 1958). If
people are asked to contribute to the public interest they will instinctively wonder who
will benefit from it. It is easier to go to great lengths when this regards people with whom
they can identify themselves and whom in turn they expect to show equal solidarity. The
more people are alienated from each other, the less they will trust or know each other.
Then it will be easier to suspect the other party from preferring self-interest to the public
interest. The less people have in common, the smaller the solidarity basis will be.
Repartition then also only works fine within national communities. Being a social
democrat, Myrdal regretted this evolution, but as an economist he pointed to a vital
requirement for welfare states to function.
The relationship between nation and solidarity works both ways. National
solidarity assumes that people can put themselves in each other’s situation, which is
impossible in case there are substantial income differences. Hence it is remarkable to see
that left-wing politicians, for whom solidarity and repartition is a crucial theme, feel so
uncomfortable when national identity is at stake. Likewise it is remarkable to see neoBelgian nationalists such as Marc Reynebeau or Geert van Istendael, defending national
solidarity, while at the same time singing the praises of the “nation that is not a nation”
(Reynebeau, 2003; Van Istendael, 2005). Solidarity and repartition will only work well
when people are convinced they are part of a community. And that is exactly what
Belgium today is not, because French-speaking and Dutch-speaking people hardly know
each other, mainly because they do not speak each other’s language.
The British 19th-century political philosopher John Stuart Mill directly connected
language and democracy (Mill, 1974). He predicted that in the long run survival of
democratic institutions is impeded in a country existing of different communities:
“Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different
languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative
government, cannot exist. The influences which form opinions and decide political acts,
are different in the different sections of the country. An altogether different set of leaders
have the confidence of one part of the country and of another. The same books,
54
newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, do not reach them. One section does not know what
opinions are circulating in another. The same incidents, the same acts, the same system of
government, affect them in different ways.”
Political communities only work well if members share the language (Miller,
1995). Otherwise said: if the communities’ members can grasp what the other party is
interested in and if they can assume each other’s situation. Multilanguage-speaking
nations need to appeal to a lingua franca (which, unless it is a neutral language, will
always cause one party to be treated unfairly) or to translators. In both cases there is a
high risk of misconceptions.
Therefore, who wants the Belgian federation to work well should see to it that
there is some kind of shared public opinion. This is only possible with the realization of
an actual bilingualism. This however is impossible as a result of the current language
legislation. And even if along the Francophone side today one occasionally hears that the
language laws were a mistake, responsible for the growing apart of the different linguistic
communities, it is unlikely that both parts of the country will reach agreement on the
same language legislation reform (Witte and Van Velthoven, 2000).
3. THE POLITICS OF REFORMING THE STATE
Dutch-speaking and French-speaking people nowadays live in political communities that
develop separately, at a different pace and presumably also in different directions
(Deschouwer, 2009). It is remarkable to see how fast this transformation has taken place.
After all, the federal idea and the federalised institutions based on it are both fairly new.
The reform of the state started in the 1970s, while it got most of its current shape in the
1990s. Before that period, Belgium was a centralized state, and ideas about political and
administrative decentralization did not necessarily allude to the language based
demarcation lines. There was, for example, speculation about a federal reform based on
the existing – at that time nine - provinces. The fact that eventually language would be
such a decisive factor was neither planned, nor foreseen. The current federal order based
on linguistic communities is the unexpected outcome of a political battle between parties
each having quite diverging objectives.
To understand Belgian political history, it is mandatory to take into consideration
the fact that economic development did not coincide for both parts of the country (Witte,
Craeybeckx and Meynen, 2000). At the beginning of the 19th century, Belgium was the
cradle of the industrial revolution. Yet this early industrial development mainly took
place in Walloon Belgium, the French-speaking part. Many generations of Flemish
people migrated to the coal mines or the steel mills in the Borinage or the Liège region.
After the Second World War the economic importance of these industries, and as such of
Walloon Belgium, declined. A key moment was the National Strike in 1960-61, at first
addressed to the austerity measures of the then liberal and Christian-democratic
government. After a while, the strike almost turned into a revolution in Walloon Belgium.
Forced by radical militant union leaders, the Walloon socialists radicalized and demanded
structural economic reforms: new investments in the Walloon industry, nationalisation of
the key industries. The Walloon socialist union and socialist party concluded from the
fact that the Flemish were less inclined to take over these demands, that from then on
Wallonia would primarily have to look after its own interests. The francophone socialists
55
put the demand for the regionalization of the making of economic policy on the agenda
(Van Dam, 1998). As a consequence, this inadvertently started the state reform process
(Covell, 1993).
The fact that the state reform also found support in Flanders was inherent to
another factor from the Belgian history – the language issue. When the Belgian state was
founded in 1830, French was the only official language, the language used in
administration, education, science and culture. The primary objective of the Flemish
movement that arose in the course of the 19th century, was therefore to promote the use of
the Dutch language (that actually was degraded to an ordinary language for everyday use)
as a language of culture (Vos, 1998). It was only later on that this cultural movement also
took on an explicit political dimension, with the demand for introducing Dutch in the
government agencies. The Flemish movement has always focussed on halting the French
language’s advance in the Flemish part. Confronted with French, being a major language,
with a more substantial social status and that made social promotion possible, many
Flemish people traditionally chose to switch to the use of that language. Furthermore as
Brussels grew, more and more French-speaking people settled in the Dutch-speaking
municipalities around the capital. The Flemish movement campaigned for an explicit
language boundary, which eventually indeed was realized in 1962-63. However,
according to the Flemish movement more was needed in order to halt the frenchification:
cultural and educational policy had to be regionalized. Hence also the Flemish movement
campaigned for a reform of the state.
The fact that the state reform actually could take place had to do with the rise of
new parties in the 1960’s: the Volksunie (VU) in the Flemish part, the Front des
Francophones (FDF) in Brussels and the Rassemblement Wallon (RW) in the Walloon
part. Each of these parties was favourably disposed towards a state reform, but on
different grounds. The VU wanted to protect the Flemish linguistic integrity, the FDF
wanted to guarantee the French-speaking people’s rights in Brussels and the RW wanted
Walloon Belgium to have the opportunity to dispose of the tools to realize its economic
recovery. In elections the three parties together scored a quarter of the votes and as such
broke the traditional (socialist, Christian-democratic and liberal) parties’ monopoly.
These traditional parties tried to counterattack the new parties by assuming a more
regional profile (Van Haute and Pilet, 2006). In the course of the 1970’s all national
parties split up, based on regional and consequently linguistic boundaries. These newly
formed regionalized parties also backed up the demand of a state reform, although it was
based on opposed grounds. The traditional parties were convinced that a decentralization
of some specific government competences was the best way to safeguard the survival of
Belgium as a state (Stouthuysen and Coffé, 2006). Decentralisation was particularly
supported by those parties –the Flemish Christian-democrats and the Walloon socialistswho hoped to become the dominant parties in their particular regions.
It is the parties’ opposed motives for implementing a state reform that makes the
final outcome to be extraordinary complex (Vande Lanotte, Bracke and Goedertier,
2003). Basically Belgium became a federation based on regions and communities. The
communities are based on the linguistic groups. Belgium constitutionally consists of three
(French-, Dutch- and German-speaking) language communities, each of which having the
authority regarding cultural and “personal matters” of the citizens belonging to the
community: this primarily concerns culture and education, but also parts of policy areas
such as welfare and health service. The communities are furthermore qualified for the
56
foreign policies regarding these areas. The Belgian constitution stipulates at the same
time the existence of three regions: the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels region, each of
which has the authority on issues regarding the socioeconomic development of the region
concerned: employment, economic policies, housing, transport, scientific research,
agriculture, social environment, energy, local administration. Furthermore the regions are
qualified for the foreign policies in those areas for which they have competencies on a
regional level.
An initial aspect of complexity is that regions and communities do not overlap.
The German-speaking community actually is located on Walloon Region soil. The
French-speaking community extends over the Brussels and Walloon regions. The Flemish
and French communities both are competent for citizens belonging to their own
community but living in the Brussels region. A second complex issue concerns the
partition of competences. Apart from communities and regions, there is also the federal
state that is qualified for justice and law, social security, monetary policies, preserving
public order, defence and foreign affairs. The several competence levels – regions,
communities and the federal state – hamper each other when real policy issues are
concerned. In day to day life, policy issues belong entirely to one competence level only,
are rare. This aspect of complexity gives the impression that the state reform process
seems to go on continuously. Confronted with the mostly inhomogeneous nature of
competences, the demand is to harmonize matters and to bring together those
competences on one level. It is remarkable to see that every plea for new reforms implies
a shift of competences from the federal state to the communities or regions; never in the
other direction. This is the consequence of the specific way in which the central state was
reformed.
4. CENTRIFUGAL FEDERALISM
The Belgian structures are set up in such a way that the communities are bound to grow
apart. Through the subsequent state reforms Belgium has chosen to have a basically
twofold federalism (Deschouwer, 2009). The French-speaking and Dutch-speaking
communities were granted a radical form of political self-government. Both communities
are autonomously qualified on many issues, apart from some issues decided at a federal
level. As a consequence the national government still is a major political level. However
it is remarkable that actually no national elections are held: regarding the federal policy
level elections are held in separate constituencies based on the Flemish and Walloon
communities. The outcome of these elections defines the constitution of the federal
parliament and the federal government. This means that the federal balance of power is
defined by the separate internal dynamics in both parts of the country. And these
dynamics completely differ from each other.
An obvious solution then seems to be an electoral system reform forcing
politicians from both parts of the country to cooperate or at least to take into account
what is going on in the other part. Spurred by political scientist Kris Deschouwer (VUB)
and political philosopher Philippe van Parijs (UCL) a team of social scientists works hard
at such a reform proposal (Deschouwer and van Parijs, 2005). The team proposes for
example that part of the parliament members or senators should be elected based on a
national constituency. Those politicians, who have to win votes in both parts of the
57
country, then have every reason not to use the communities against each other and to take
into account the general public interest. It is understood that this is a logical proposition.
The only question then is whether political support will be found for this. After all this
reform can only be implemented when a consensus will be reached across the language
boundaries. The different political dynamics in the two parts make this a nearly
impossible issue.
Hence the evolution to be expected will rather show a further splitting up of the
remaining national matters (taxes, social security, police and justice, macroeconomic
policies and employment, defence, foreign affairs, mobility, telecommunication,
significant parts of research policy and public health). Belgium is heading towards being
a confederation consisting of two self-governing units, in a national context that becomes
ever more elusive (Swenden and Jans, 2006). The current institutional complexity ensures
that the institutions’ reform will remain to be high on the political agenda, even without
new tensions between the communities. The subsequent state reforms caused competence
overlaps in almost any policy area, constantly resulting in subsequent policy delays. The
complexity of the institutional framework makes that policy issues often need to be dealt
with on the basis of a concerted approach between different authorities. Health insurance
is for example a federal matter while preventive medical care is a community matter. The
communities are responsible for the education and school transport is a community
matter, whereas teachers’ pensions as well as the recognition of the professional
qualifications are a federal matter. Issues like these make that, even without tensions
between the different parts of the country, institutional reform will continuously be on the
political agenda.
It is right to ask oneself whether this doctoring should necessarily lead to a further
splitting up of the federal state. For example, Flanders claims that in order to realize a
more efficient government, further competence transfers are needed regarding health and
family policies, development cooperation, research and technology policies, the working
of the railway infrastructure and tax matters. However, from a logical point of view a recentralization of some policy matters, for example concerning foreign trade or setting
noise nuisance standards, might be a worthy alternative if the objective is governmental
efficiency. If competence areas indeed need to be made homogeneous, this could also be
done on a federal level.
Nonetheless it seems impossible to have such a renewed centralization or
federalisation (Hooghe, 2004). By transferring complex matters to the regional states the
complexity will at least be reduced in one way: consultation with the other community
will no longer be required. Making issues a Belgian matter again will cause a renewed
substantial risk of community difficulties. And although some policy issues can only be
resolved by the communities’ actual mutual consultation, politicians will anyway try to
avoid the risk of a confrontation. Today the line of least resistance is in transferring
competences to the level of the regional states.
5. IS CONFEDERALISM A SOLUTION?
Is Belgium then bound to be(come) a confederation? Is it impossible to stop the drift
towards the continuous splitting up of competences and the ongoing stripping down of
the federal state? The Swiss model proves that a confederal solution might work, but also
58
that a certain price needs to be paid. In a federal system the sovereign powers are shared
between the central state and the regional states, while in a confederal system the regional
states exercise sovereignty. In Switzerland the national level seems to be absent; the
federal authorities are quite weak and the national government rules on the basis of
consensus. The actual political centre of gravity can be found on the level of the regional
states, the majority of which are monolingual (Gallagher, Laver and Mair, 2006).
Confederal constitutions also have their constraints. They do not work when
complicated choices need to be made where the regional states are convinced they would
be better off when they do not cooperate. The central authorities do not have the powers
or competences to bring the regional states into line. Consequently a deadlock is created
where separation becomes a tangible option for the unwilling regional states.
Confederations exist merely by the grace of the regional states (Elazar, 1994).
The starting point for Belgium is more complicated because of its duality. When
there are 26 regional states, as is the case in Switzerland, there is every chance that these
states, when political conflicts arise, will sometimes win and sometimes lose. As such the
losses will be compensated for by the wins. However Belgium will always have to
function on the basis of the same two regional states. Consequently in time all conflicts
will coincide. This situation has in theory the advantage that once in a while everything
can be solved in one go, by combining in a package deal the demands of all parties
concerned. This happened in fact in the so-called “Sint-Michiels agreement”, where the
demands of the Francophone community regarding new means for their schools were
matched by the Flemish demands regarding competence transfers with regards to
agriculture. Unfortunately, it will much more be the case that one demand will block the
other, that for example the demand for more Flemish competences is being blocked by
the Francophone demand to reconsider Brussels’ boundaries. When such things happen
regularly, it could well be that one of the regional states decides to opt for independence.
Belgian politics nowadays already has traits of a confederal system. Because the
federal level is ever more being undermined, there are few platforms left on which issues
of mutual importance can be dealt with, by politicians having sufficient powers to work
out the required solutions for complicated problems. In fact, apart from the Royal House,
the federal government is the only national body that is left. However, if you have a
different majority on the federal and on the regional level – as was the case when (before
the 2010 elections) on the federal level the Flemish socialists (SP.A) and the Flemish
nationalists (NV-A) were in the opposition, while they were in government on the
Flemish level – then this factor cannot be retained as a conflict-reducing mechanism
anymore. Parties governing on a regional state level, while being in opposition on the
national level, will not necessarily assume a constructive attitude for the sake of the
country’s interest. This consequently results in blocking institutional issues and leads to
political deadlocks.
Some issues are nearly unsolvable. The division of Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde is
one of them. According to the Flemish parties, the electoral district Brussel-HalleVilvoorde is in contradiction with the constitutional arrangement of the language areas;
the current ability to vote for Walloon and French-speaking Brussels’ candidates is
considered a breach of equity. The Francophone parties consider this to be a denial of the
constitutional rights of the Francophones to vote for whoever they want. Another issue
concerns the Zaventem airport, which is physically located in Flanders, while airplanes
fly over the Walloon and Brussels regions. Any attempt to evenly spread the noise
59
nuisance over the surrounding municipalities fails, as a result of the deviating noise
reduction standards of the regions involved. Such issues reveal the pattern that can be
expected in the future. Since it is becoming increasingly complicated to solve institutional
issues on the federal level, other tracks are tried out. For example, more and more an
appeal is being made to law courts or the Council of State: issues that once were settled
on the political level, now are left in the care of judges. Yet because judges pass sentence
on actual cases only, after some time the underlying issue will inevitably be put again on
the political agenda. At the very most the judicial way can only temporarily put the
pressure off.
Besides more and more talks concertation takes place on an intergovernmental
level, with all the regional and the federal government together. However, since decisions
need to be taken unanimously on this level and there is no set hierarchy (the federal level
is not superior to the regional level), blocking the meeting does not require an exceptional
effort. In these concertations, everyone is looking at the federal government to come with
solutions, but the government is powerless to impose them. One of the unintended results
of the institutional reform is that it has become much more difficult to find solutions for
conflicts between the different parts of the country, especially once several governments
are involved (Jans and Tombeur, 2000).
6. CONCLUSION: THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT?
Today the Belgian institutions function in such a way that powerful politicians prefer to
work on the regional level, simply because things are less complicated at that level and
they can actually do something. On the national level, where every matter of policy
inevitably is always a matter of contention between the major communities, politics is an
uphill battle, and that is why the option to transfer back some competences to the federal
level does not stand a chance. Politicians are not going to prefer to take the hard road,
especially when they know this will not be rewarded by voters.
We inevitably evolve in the direction of the dismantling of the federal level,
although there is reason to believe that also this situation does not guarantee a stable
solution. Once the federal level is almost powerless, it becomes impossible to control
conflicts involving both communities. A confederal structure is not a viable alternative
either: when always the same two regional states are opposed to each other, after a while
they will inevitably go their own way. Perhaps outsiders are more apt to correctly assess
the situation in this case: after consideration, Belgium’s future is not bright at all.
Does it really matter? States do not have eternal life; states are political
constructions that in practice have to prove they serve a useful purpose. If a particular
state form is part of the problem rather than of the solution, then there is little reason to
stick to it. The question is however whether this is also the case for the Belgian state
form. Even a sensible cost-benefit analysis does not necessarily lead to the conclusion
that the Flemish region would be better off without Belgium. For instance, because of the
demographic structure, Flanders will probably be more hit by the ageing of the
population than the Wallonia. And then the much decried transfers from north to south
regarding health insurance and social security will decrease or else will change direction.
It is true that the Belgian construction is extremely complicated and entails that
for some problems there is barely a solution. Belgian politics is a continuous balancing
60
act in which one tries to find complex, yet workable compromises that take into account
highly diverging interests and sensitivities. The question then is whether the situation will
be that much simpler if Belgium were to disappear. Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia are
so inextricably interwoven that also in this case constant talking and negotiating will be
required. It is yet to be seen whether it would be that easier to enter into an agreement on
noise nuisance or on the railway traffic when the opposing sides are independent political
units.
Discussions on the Belgian future often pass off unequally. Adversaries of the
Belgian set-up have an easy time, because all they have to do is to point to the
dysfunctions of the current situation. For advocates or – as is the case with us – moderate
proponents of the Belgian model, it is a lot more complicated because a number of issues
indeed are inappropriately conceived in the Belgian construction. But after all now it is
up to the opponents. As long as they do come up with a satisfactory solution to what is
for example supposed to happen with Brussels, we are not convinced by the alternatives.
We know what is wrong with the existing state. We do not know the hidden dangers of
the alternatives. Therefore, Belgium deserves the benefit of the doubt.
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62
IS THE FEDERAL PROCESS IN ITALY GOING TO CONSTRUCT A SYSTEM,
A POLITY OR NOTHING?
Giuseppe Gangemi
Università di Padova, Dipartimento Studi Storici e Politici
1. A TERMINOLOGICAL PREMISE
What I am going to introduce is the meaning of the concept of federalism as historically
used in Italy, where it has been used in many different theoretical and political ways.
Let me start with a few examples of different theoretical uses: 1) Gianfranco
Miglio, for instance, a political scientist who influenced the Lega Nord in the period
1990-1994, defined federalism as “a structure for deciding”; 2) Silvio Trentin, an
antifascist in exile in France and a leader in the French and Italian resistance to Nazism
and to Fascism, defined federalism as “a structure for participating”; 3) Carlo Cattaneo,
the most well known Italian federalist scholar and a protagonist of the Italian
Risorgimento during the 1848 movements, considered federalism as a realistic way of
creating the United States of Europe with a second-order federalist level constituted by
nations, States and Empires. In fact, within the United States of Europe, he augured the
presence of the Austria-Hungarian Empire organized in a federalist structure and of the
rest of the Italian peninsula organized as the United States of Italy. In the at that time
utopian European Federation, “Lombardy-Veneto”, being a federal State of the AustriaHungarian Empire and the richest State of the Empire and of the Italian country, was to
improve its relations with the other States of the Italian peninsula and act, informally, as
an Italian State in the United States of Europe, while formally remaining a State of the
Austria-Hungarian Empire. Cattaneo’s idea of federalism was connected to his intuition
on the relevance of cross-border informal relations in a federation and on the fact that
these relations could become stronger than the formal ones. This intuition may be easily
verified, today, within the European Union, where relations among trans-border regions,
in many cases, have become more intense than formal relations among regions in the
State itself – see the case of the ADRIA trans-border region where Italian north-eastern
regions are becoming more confident in Austrian regions than in southern Italian regions.
Let us now describe a few uses of the term federalism, among the many different
political ones made nowadays by Italian politicians:
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1) “federalism” used as a synonym of decentralization;
2) “federalism” used as a term which is not to be used to indicate a reform in the
Constitution giving new powers to the ordinary regions (since “federalism” has been
considered, by the centre-left coalition which realized that reform, as a synonym of
secessionism);
3) “federalism” used as a term with a stigmatic sense to indicate the centre-leftist
constitutional reform defined “irresponsible federalism” (the Lega Nord maintains that no
federalism is possible without fiscal federalism);
4) “federalism” used as a term with a stigmatic sense to indicate the secessionist
positions of the more radical Lega Nord supporters. To explain these different uses of the
term we must start from the beginning.
Looking back to the formal organization of the Italian State, it was for a long time
centralized with no concrete form of decentralization: even mayors had long been
nominated by the national government; the prefect was the representative of the
government in every Italian Province and the supervisor of the President of the Province
and of the mayors. The town clerk, a government employee, was detached from the
municipal council and appointed to control the municipal administration. Only with the
Constitution of 1948, was real decentralization formally realized with the regions, new
local entities with legislative power. But, until 1970, only five extraordinary regions
received real financial power (Valle d’Aosta, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia and Sicily,
and the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano).
For the other 15 regions, the legislative power given to the Italian regions (with
the reform of the ordinary regions realized in 1970) has not changed the nature of the
centralized State. Much more power has been given to the regions with the constitutional
reform of the fifth writ of the Italian Constitution (realized in 2001). This reform, which
has been realized by the centre-left majority, and has been opposed by the Lega Nord, has
changed only a few things in the formal organization of the State but it has authorized the
ordinary regions to spend autonomously even if they are without any financial autonomy.
The consequence has been that southern regions have increased their expenditure while
the government has been obliged to take on their deficits. Even so, this is not considered
a real federalist reform: by the centre-left coalition because they never used the term
federalism or any other derivative of the Latin term “foedus” in the constitutional reform
(in fact the constitutional reform has mainly been a way of giving a constitutional
covering to the so called “Bassanini reform”, realized with four ordinary laws, which
gave much new power to mayors and removed much control over them); by the Lega
Nord because it is insisting that the 2001 constitutional reform (but not the Bassanini
laws which have been accepted by the left, the centre and the right) has realized a form of
“irresponsible federalism”. To transform this irresponsible federalism into a responsible
one, the centre-right majority has approved Law n. 42, published May 6th, 2009, which
has introduced “fiscal federalism”. It is, however, questionable, due to the complexity of
the law, whether this law is a way of introducing responsibility in the decentralization of
powers, realized with the 2001 constitutional reform, or a way of reducing the deficit of
the national State.
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2. THE FEDERALIST PROCESS AS A THEORETICAL AND GENERAL
PROBLEM
The term federalism derives from the Latin word “foedus”. “Foedus” may be interpreted
as a synonym of three different words: 1) covenant; 2) compact; 3) contract. Covenant
means founded on a religious “foedus” between God and humans or among humans
trusting to God. The term was adopted by Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan (1651) and
diffused by religious pilgrims, in the political dictionary of USA federalists and
politicians. Compact means founded on a strong secular “foedus” based on the principles
of a long term obligation. John Locke adopted the term in The Two Treatises of
Government (1689), where it took on the same sense as covenant but with no connection
to religion, since political and religious connections were considered, at the end of the
17th century, the origin of intolerance and inequity. Contract means founded on the more
modern assumption that a long term obligation is unfair and illiberal. This last term was
frequently and explicitly used in Italy by Gianfranco Miglio and other authors as the real
meaning of the term federalism. According to Miglio, from 1990 to 1994, and to the Lega
Nord, from 1996 to 2001 (when the Lega Nord entered the second Berlusconi
government), the power to secede must be granted to any ethnic community and the right
to secede may be exercised, in that the federalist pact is analogous to a contract, with a
local referendum and a simple majority of votes (fifty per cent plus one vote in the
totality of people having the right to vote).These other authors employed this meaning of
the term “foedus” in an implicit way. Miglio used it to justify the inalienability of the
right to secede.
Miglio taught how to intend federalism as a contract. But Miglio was not a real
federalist. In the fifties and sixties, he was a regionalist; at the end of the eighties and at
the beginning of the nineties, he became a secessionist, and subsequently a supporter of
Forza Italia and Silvio Berlusconi (see the book Io, Bossi e la Lega, published in 1994)
after the political separation from the Lega. The first consequence of Miglio’s lesson was,
in Italy, the de-construction of the concept of federalism which is often used to indicate a
form of decentralization or a way to govern by contract. In recent years, the term
federalism has been used more and more to indicate any form of contract drawn up
between a public administration and a private citizen or a juridical body. Thus, in Italy,
federalism may even be considered a practical application of the “New Public
Management” theories and principles.
But the real problem, for a real federalism, is not whether a Foedus is a covenant,
a compact or a contract. The real problem is whether the “foedus” is a political pact
regarding the system (the political or institutional system) or a polity (a politically
organized social body). The difference in the article used (“the” to indicate the system
and “a” to indicate a polity), depends on the fact that we have a unique institutional or
formal system, while we may think of a different politically organized society for any
political issue. In fact, “foedus” may refer to the political “system” or to a “polity”.
“System” is a formal and institutional (thus conventional) political organization (a system
may be the result of a formal decision like a law or a constitution). “Polity” is the
developing political organizational form obtained through regulation (a term which
derives from the Latin “regulae” and may be interpreted as the English juridical term
“precedents”). From another point of view, the difference between “polity” and “political
system” is connected to the question of sovereignty. In the expression political system,
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emphasis is given to the sovereignty delegated to the political elite. In the term polity,
emphasis is given to the politically organized society as a whole - no emphasis to the
dichotomy between ruled and rulers.
The difference between system and polity may even be intended as hegemony: we
have a system when we have the hegemony of elites (and their supporters) on public
opinion and on society (this is usually the case); we have a polity when we have
relatively weak elites and a strong public opinion and/or society (it sometimes occurs).
Who are the supporters of the elites? Among the others: 1) Political militants (people
living for politics); 2) political clients (people living on politics); 3) professional
protesters (people “experiencing” – in the sense of “emotionally living” - the protest).
These categories form “the system”; other categories, when politically organized, thus
politically active, form “a polity”. The difference between the system and a polity may be
intended as the two different dimensions of politics: the political system is composed of
the elites and of their supporters competing on the horizontal dimension of politics (right
or left?); a polity refers to the vertical dimension of politics (the ruler acting in agreement
with the ruled or the ruled acting autonomously?). Thus, the system is the traditional
State (representative or not), a polity is any federal unity or informal federation (in the
terms used by Silvio Trentin, any autonomy or order and even any order of autonomy or
order of orders). Silvio Trentin, born in 1885, was a jurist and a member of parliament.
With the affirmation of fascism he abandoned Italy with his family and moved to France
where he wrote a lot of political and juridical books trying to explain why the Italian
liberal democracy succumbed to fascism early. From 1931 he theorized federalism as a
way of strengthening democracy. He died in 1944 after being imprisoned, at the end of
1943, by Italian fascists. He proposed a new idea of federalism defining it as a structure
for participation. He named this structure Order of Orders (or Autonomy of Autonomies).
The concept of Order of Orders is more similar to what, many years later, in 1973,
Daniel J. Elazar called polity. Elazar was born in Minneapolis (Minnesota) in 1935 and
became a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University (Israel) and Temple
University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). He was the founder and president of the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the founder of the review Publius (from 1971)
which he directed until his death (in 1999). He considered federalism as a western
political tradition starting from Moses and a way of strengthening democracy. Daniel J.
Elazar explained that federalism always takes on a strong polity capable of putting itself
on an equalitarian level vis-à-vis the elites and their supporters. He also explained that a
polity may be the consequence of historical experiences which construct a local, regional
or national psychology (a “mind” in the philosophical dictionary of Giambattista Vico).
In fact, political scientists think of Italy as organized into four Italian subnational
“minds”, which are the consequence of four different political and historical experiences:
1) the once called “Catholic area” where the idea of the centrality of the family
had been affirmed in the history of the old territories of the Serenissima’s “Stato de Tera”
(it is possible to interpret the method of “dedizioni” as evidence of the preference for the
security of family members – first of all wives and sisters – rather than the municipality’s
autonomy), and the provinces of Trento (governed for centuries by archbishops) and
Trieste;
2) the still called “red belt subculture” where territories historically governed by
the Church constantly affirmed the municipalities’ autonomy with militarily weak Popes
and tried to defend it against militarily strong Popes; where the Duchies of Lucca, Parma
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and Modena were successful in defending their autonomy; and where municipalities like
Pisa and other towns, even if eventually annexed to the Duchy of Tuscany, strongly
fought to defend their autonomy from Florence;
3) the “southern mind” regarding the old Kingdom of Naples and Sicily and
Sardinia (this last region governed by the Savoy dynasty) where the local ruling classes
convinced their populations and themselves that the prosperity of their territories
depended on the transferring of financial resources from the political centre;
4) the “north-western mind” regarding the continental territories of the old
Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta and Liguria) and the old Duchy of Milan
where investments on great public works have produced firms, Unions and parties
structured as large scale organizations. The federalist idea was once present in southern
Italy, while it is now present, mainly, in the north-eastern regions and, secondarily, in the
north-western regions.
Thus, a mind is the outcome of historical experiences. In this sense, in Italy, there
have been several historical minds: 1) the north-eastern mind (in Veneto, Friuli-Venezia
Giulia, Trentino and eastern Lombardy); 2) the north-western mind (in western
Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Valle d’Aosta); 3) the red or leftist mind (in EmiliaRomagna, Tuscany, Umbria and the Marches); 4) and so on (in that, for instance, we may
consider in the future, in case of a political victory by the Lega Nord, the possibility of a
new mind, strictly related to the concept of “Padania”).
Figure 1 – The rivers in northern Italy
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3. THE FEDERALIST PROCESS IN ITALY: PROBLEMS AND DIRECTIONS
First problem: in the Italian debate on federalism, words are used in a sense that does not
derive from common practice. See, for instance, the term “Padania” (whose meaning, in
this paper, I will try to de-construct). Technically, the term Padania indicates northern
Italy and, exactly, the hydrographic basin of The Po River (see figures 1 and 2). When the
term was used, for the first time, in the political debate (in the seventies) it was used to
indicate eight regions: Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Trentino, FriuliVenezia Giulia, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna. From the 15th of September 1996, three more
regions were added to the previous list: Tuscany, the Marches and Umbria (see figure 3).
If we look at figure 1, we seemingly see northern Italy as a homogeneous area
with a lot of rivers and water. Actually, northern Italy has two important and different
systems of water (the basin of the Po-river - see figure 2 - and the rivers of the so called
“Triveneto”, i.e. three regions Veneto, Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia). As a
consequence, the North of Italy had two different histories (the north-eastern and the
north-western).
Figure 2 – The basin of the Po-river; Padania in a hydrographic sense
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According to Gianfranco Miglio, Italy is divided, into three macro-regions and
two regions: Padania, Tuscia, Mediterranea and the two islands of Sardinia and Sicily.
Miglio’s division is a consequence of ethnic and climatic differences: 1) “Padania” is the
macroregion where Celts once lived; 2) “Tuscania” is the macroregion where the
Etruscans once lived; 3) “the Mediterranean” is the macroregion more influenced by the
Mediterranean climate (the South and the Islands). Thus, Padania, according to Miglio, is
made up of eight regions: Valle d’Aosta; Piedmont; Liguria; Lombardy; Trentino-Alto
Adige; Veneto; Friuli-Venezia Giulia; Emilia-Romagna. Tuscia is made up of four
regions: Tuscany; Umbria; the Marches; Lazio. Mediterranea is made up of six regions:
Figure 3 – The twenty Italian regions
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Abruzzo; Molise; Campania; Basilicata; Apulia; Calabria. Two islands are considered
two natural federal unities: Sicily and Sardinia.
4. PADANIA AS A HISTORICAL PROBLEM
After having shared, in the first half of the nineties, Miglio’s distinction of Padania,
Tuscia, Mediterranea and Islands, on 15th September 1996, during a demonstration on the
Po river and Venice, the leader of Lega Nord, Umberto Bossi, proposed a new distinction
between Padania and the rest of Italy. In fact, he announced that Padania was made up of
eleven regions (the well known eight northern regions and three more regions in the
Centre: Tuscany, Umbria and the Marches). To better understand these divisions and the
modification in terms of territories, see figure 3.
Seeing the question from a hydrographic point of view, Padania is made up of
three regions (Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont and Lombardy) and a half (Emilia-Romagna) and
a small part of two other regions (Trentino and Liguria). Seeing the question from a
historical point of view, Padania doesn’t exist in that, inside the North and the Centre of
Italy, two different political histories have been experienced:
1) a militarist and centralized experience, the one of Lombardy, militarily active
in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the one of Piedmont, militarily active during the 18th,
19th and 20th centuries;
2) a pragmatic and decentralized experience, the one of the “Stato da Tera” of the
Serenissima Republic of Venice characterized by practices of negotiations and local
autonomies and the one of the Papal State, which only formally exercised its authority
and, because of this, recognized large autonomies to territories outside the Lazio region.
The most aggressive dynasties in northern Italy were the Carraresi, the Visconti,
the Scaligeri, etc. The one nearest to the realization of a great Italian State was the
Visconti dynasty, and in particular Gian Galeazzo Visconti who governed, in the second
half of the 14th century, the dukedom of Milan, a part of Tuscany, of Emilia-Romagna
and of the Veneto; and his son Filippo Maria Visconti tried to recover the territories lost
after his father’s death. The complete list of the territories in Gian Galeazzo’s possession
was: Alba, Alessandria, Asti, Belluno, Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Crema, Cremona,
Feltre, Lodi, Milano, Novara, Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Pieve di Cadore, Piacenza,
Pontremoli, Reggio Emilia, Tortona, Valenza, Vercelli, Verona, Vicenza e Vigevano (see
figure 4).
If we look at figure 4, representing the political situation in 1402, we can see that
Venice had only two territories on the mainland:
1) The towns of Treviso and Conegliano on the basin of the little but important, for the
equilibrium of the lagoon, Sile-river (a river flowing into the lagoon, whose mouth was
diverted out of the lagoon in 1683);
2) The territory between Ferrara and the Po-river to protect the lagoon from Ferrara’s
citizens who had tried to divert the river-course of the Po with possible indirect
consequences on the lagoon.
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Figure 4 – Northern and Central Italy when Gian Galeazzo Visconti died, in the year 1402
In two years, from 1404 to 1406, Venice expanded its territories on the mainland
annexing Vicenza, Verona and Padua with a double strategy: 1) in the cities, like Verona
with the Scaligeri and Padua with the Carraresi, ruled by local elites with ambitious
military projects and a consequent history, the Serenissima Republic first conquered the
cities and, if the leaders fell into their hands, the Republic sentenced them to exile or to
death, together with their heirs (as Venice did to the Carraresi in Padua). Afterwards, the
Serenissima Republic negotiated autonomy and safety from external enemies with the
citizens without their traditional leaders, i.e. the political spontaneous organism we may
call polity in the sense given to the term by Daniel J. Elazar; 2) in the city of Vicenza, the
polity spontaneously negotiated with the republic the “dedizione” (devotement) of the
town to the Serenissima Republic in order to receive autonomy and safety. In relatively
few years, from 1404 to 1430, Venice acquired, with this double strategy (war and
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negotiations or negotiations and devotement) a large territory in north-eastern Italy, the
“Stato da Tera” (see figure 5)
Figure 5 – Venice in the year 1600: the “Stato da Tera” (Land)
To avoid the danger of being submitted to military force, after the death of Gian
Galeazzo Visconti, many towns negotiated, with the object of maintaining a broad
autonomy, their acceptance into the Serenissima Republic (see figure 4). Accepting the
devotement (sometimes Venice refused, like in the case of Ancona in 1415), Venice
managed to defend the equilibrium of its lagoon from the perils deriving from the
diversions of the river-courses (as Gian Galeazzo Visconti was going to do to conquer
Mantua and Padua easily). Thus, from 1404, Venice accepted all the territories in the
Veneto system of rivers as well as the territories in eastern Lombardy.
This way, the Serenissima implicitly defended the dukedom of Mantua while it
was defending the course of the Po and the equilibrium around the lagoon. It stopped its
acceptance of new “dedizioni” at the third important affluent of the Po River (the Adda
River). In 25 years, from 1404 to 1429, the list of “dedizioni” (devotements) to the
Serenissima Republic, in the Italian Peninsula, was impressive: Vicenza, Feltre and
Belluno (1404), Verona (1405), the Carnia (1410), Cividale del Friuli (1419), San Vito al
Tagliamento, Portogruaro, Udine, Albona d’Istria, Fianona, Gemona, Venzone,
Tolmezzo, San Daniele del Friuli, Monfalcone, Merano, Cadore, Aquileia (1420), Val
Trompia, Val Sabbia and Val Camonica (1428) and Orzinuovi (1429). Outside the
peninsula, the Serenissima received the devotement of Dulcigno in Albania and of
Salonika (1423). In the same period, Padua and the Polesine (1405), Brescia (1423), Trau
(1420), Bergamo and a part of the province of Verona (1428) were conquered by the
Serenissima, while Zara, Pago, Novegradi (1409), Rovereto, Sacile (1419), Spalato and
Budua (1420), Scutari (1423), Salò and the Communities of the Riviera del Garda (1426)
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were acquired with pacific means. The “Stato da Tera” (the Land) of the Serenissima was
organized by Venice in twelve provinces: Padovana, Vicentina, Veronese, Bresciana,
Bergamasca, Cremasca, Bellunese, Feltrina, Trevigiana, Polesine, the Friuli and Istria.
Figure 6 – Northern and Central Italy in the year 1700
The history of the Savoy dynasty is completely different: it was a history of wars
with territories lost in France and conquered in Italy. During the process of construction
of the modern French State, the Savoy lost a large part of their territories (15th century)
and they recovered them at the end of the war. The following century French armed men
occupied their territories. During this century, to compensate for the territories and
influence lost in France, the Savoy tried and succeeded in acquiring territories and
influence in Italy. As we can see from the comparison of figures 4 and 6, during the 16th
and 17th centuries the dynasty lost, because of unlucky wars, many territories in France,
while they gained territories in Italy.
In 1713, the Savoy acquired the title of king when they obtained Sicily, which
they tried, unsuccessfully, to control with a military policy. After seven years, they
renounced and exchanged Sicily with the more peaceful Sardinia, but they maintained the
title of king (of the Kingdom of Sardinia). With the same method used in Sicily in the
18th century, they governed Italian regions after the union of the Italian peninsula
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obtained in 1859-60. This in spite of the fact that they received most of the Italian
territories by devotement: the Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Parma, the Duchy of
Modena (see figure 6), part of the Marches and the Umbria region and the town of
Bologna which rebelled against their legitimate sovereigns and offered their devotement
to the Savoy. The following year, the king Vittorio Emanuele II received from Giuseppe
Garibaldi the entire Regno delle due Sicilie (The reign of Naples and Sicily) conquered
by voluntary troops, named “garibaldini” or “I Mille” (from the number, more or less a
thousand, who landed in Sicily with the first wave).
The north-western model of political and economic development was the result of
the Savoy military expansion in north-western Italy. This expansion produced a
centralized State with large towns, large firms, large-scale infrastructures, and a wellorganized civil society, divided into large unions and not so many (if compared to northeastern Italy) organizations of the third sector (association of volunteers, non profit, and
so on). The Savoy dynasty governed the new Reign of Italy, as if it were a militarily
conquered territory. Why, you may ask. In my opinion, because they were unable to think
of government in a different way!
As a conclusion of this section, we can say that a spontaneous, negotiated
submission implies the prevalence of the polity on the political elites and the existence of
a politically organized civil society that is stronger and more important than the elites and
their supporters. Thus, it takes on a polity that maintains the right to draw up an
associative “foedus”. From a political point of view, the method of “dedizioni” must be
considered as an evolution of the method of the “Podestà”, that is, governors coming
from another town and governing with their mercenaries. The main virtue requested of a
“Podestà” was the capability of giving the impression of winning easily any conflict with
internal elites and supporters, and of being neutral vis-à-vis the interests of conflicting
citizens or groups. The method of “dedizioni” was amply used during the Italian
Risorgimento. First of all, Daniele Manin, the President of the Venetian Republic, in the
years 1848-49, offered the Savoy dynasty a unilateral “Abnegation Pact in favour of the
Savoy dynasty”. The consequence of this Pact was that many Italian States, in 1859, and
even Garibaldi, in the name of the new conquered Reign of Naples and Siciliy, conscious
that his volunteers, the “garibaldini”, had been able to conquer a reign, but were unable to
govern it, offered the devotement of the southern reign to the King of Sardinia: Vittorio
Emanuele II (the second), who has been the first (sic!) King of Italy.
5. A FEW THEORETICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO DIFFERENT
HISTORIES ON THE ITALIAN HISTORICAL DEBATE ON FEDERALISM
In 1844 (Notizie naturali e civili sulla Lombardia) and in 1858 (La città), Carlo Cattaneo
elaborated the project of a Federalist society organized according to the idea that the
federal unities should be the “Sonderbundi” (i.e. the Regional States obtained by the
military expansion of towns like Milan, Florence, Naples, Mantua, etc.).
The term Sonderbundi derived from Swiss history, where the term was introduced
to indicate the league of seven cantons which united, in 1845, to defend themselves
against a centralist project of constitutional reform. Cattaneo used this term from 1848 to
1860 while, after the Unity of Italy, when a centralized State was definitively realized, he
renounced to his ideological positions: the construction of an Italian Federation modelled
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on the Swiss federal system. In the summer of the year 1864, while a national law on
municipalities and provinces was being discussed in the Italian parliament, he assumed a
more pragmatic position and wrote three letters to the review “Diritto” to ask for more
autonomy and power to the municipalities. “Municipalities”, he wrote, “exist before the
Reign and before the nation”. He thought that the main element of a federalist State was
the cities with their land (the Italian provincial, regional or macroregional States) as in the
Swiss model, but he convinced himself that a central role would be played by the
municipalities in the new centralized Italian State. This second position of Cattaneo’s
influenced the “red belt subculture” through three other scholars: the republican and
federalist Arcangelo Ghisleri and the socialists Leonida Bissolati and Filippo Turati.
In 1852, in direct controversy with Carlo Cattaneo, the young politician Giuseppe
Zanardelli from Brescia (a town in Lombardy governed by the Serenissima for four
centuries) proposed (Storia dei feudi) an alternative project of federalist reform more in
accordance with the political history of the “Stato da Tera”. He proposed a federalist
polity organized around Communes (see Gangemi, 1999). In 1858, without having
accepted the Abnegation Pact proposed by Daniele Manin, Carlo Cattaneo re-proposed
(La città) a federative pact among the Italian States, which he considered to be
(militarily) enlarged towns. The same year 1858, having accepted the Abnegation Pact
proposed by Daniele Manin, Zanardelli proposed (and realized in the forthcoming years)
an alternative project of local development through small firms, small savings banks, self
help, etc. Angelo Messedaglia, a friend of Zanardelli, made a similar proposal in the
Veneto. Both were pupils of a pupil (Andrea Zambelli) of Giandomenico Romagnosi
(who had been Cattaneo’s master). While Zanardelli had no important political
continuator, Messedaglia had important pupils: Felice Lampertico, Emilio Morpurgo,
Luigi Luzzatti (Gangemi, 2001) and Giuseppe Toniolo. I suggested “Anthropological
Federalism” as a name for the Messedaglia and Zanardelli strategy of strengthening civil
society, and thus the polity (see Gangemi, 1994).
Anthropological Federalism underwent an important evolution in north-eastern
Italy: first of all, this subculture was politically affirmed, in the western Lombard region,
by Zanardelli, a freemason and anti-clerical who was to become an important Prime
Minister (1901-1903); secondly, the same political subculture was elaborated in Veneto
by two Jewish intellectuals, among others: Emilio Morpurgo who had been Rector of the
University of Padua and Luigi Luzzatti who was an important economist and was to
become a Prime Minister (1911-1912). Even if Anthropological Federalism started as a
liberal culture, after the defeat of Caporetto, in 1917, when the liberal political elite
(starting from the mayors) abandoned non-belligerent populations and only parsons
stayed by elderly men and their families, in a few years, populations changed their
political allegeance completely. When a Catholic party (the Italian Popular Party, PPI)
was founded by don Luigi Sturzo, the populations of those areas ravaged by World War I
gave a substantial vote to the PPI. After the Second World War, the new Catholic party
(Christian Democracy) received, in those areas, more than fifty per cent of the votes.
Now, in the same areas, where the family has become less important than before and
Christian Democracy has betrayed the federalist positions it had at the beginning, the
Lega Nord, which is a political supporter of a form of Territorial Federalism, is receiving
the relative majority of votes. The Lega Nord’s most important political project is fiscal
federalism (i.e. aiming to obtain that most of the taxes paid in each region is spent within
the region).
75
Between the two world wars, Anthropological Federalism was definitively
theorized in a complete form: the last and the most important theorist of Anthropological
Federalism was a pupil of Luigi Luzzatti, Silvio Trentin, who wrote in 1935 the important
work La crise du Droit et de l’Etat, where he proposed a way of organizing the polity that
he named “Order of Orders” (or Autonomy of Autonomies). The Orders were not only
institutional autonomies, but even social autonomies as “consorzi”, i.e. single issue
cooperative societies, partnerships, multi-issue cooperative societies, and so on. Even if
Trentin has been one of the most important opponents of fascism, after his death, in 1944,
his theories did not receive any practical attention from the Constituent Assembly and
from the politicians of the so-called “First Republic”. Recently, Trentin’s most important
work (La crisi del Diritto e dello Stato) has been translated and published in Italy (2006).
The book was given an award by the “Club dei Giuristi” as the best juridical book of
2006. From that year on, his federalist theory has been receiving new attention.
6. POLITICAL AND THEORETICAL TRADITIONS AND CONSEQUENT
PROJECTS OF FEDERALISM
The military way to govern a new reign was described by Nicolò Macchiavelli in two
important works: 1) Descrizione del modo tenuto dal Duca Valentino nello ammazzare
Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, il Signor Pagolo e il duca di Gravina Orsini; 2) Il
Principe. This way produced a centralized State governed, through laws and decrees, as a
closed social relation (see Weber 1980, I:41).
The way of governing a polity has been described as republicanism, while I prefer
to describe it as Anthropological Federalism. Anyway, republicanism is meant to derive
from Machiavelli’s political lesson. In fact, in the 16th century, Macchiavelli derived a
theory from the lessons of Titus Livius (see I Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio)
which has recently been named “republicanism” or “neoromanism”. Instead,
Anthropological Federalism is meant to derive from Vico’s lesson. In fact, in the 18th
century, Giambattista Vico elaborated a new theory which many other authors continued
and expanded, the most important one being Antonio Serbati Rosmini, in the 19th century.
Rosmini elaborated an implicit form of Anthropological Federalism deriving it from the
history of the Church in the first centuries (see Le cinque piaghe della Chiesa). In the 20th
century, Silvio Trentin elaborated an explicit form of Anthropological Federalism, in the
work La crise du Droit et de l’Etat, which was neglected, in Italy, for seventy years.
From 1975, John Pocock, Quentin Skinner and Philippe Petitt gave the name
“republicanism” to theories and practices in Great Britain and the USA influenced by
Machiavelli’s Discorsi. From 1973, Daniel J. Elazar named “polity” the ideal locus where
the foedus is drawn up and explained that this ideal locus is, in a federalist theory, more
important than government and institutions. The polity may be thought as the regulative
order (Regulierungsordnung) operating as an open social relation (see Weber 1980, I: 41,
46, 50). There are many similarities between new republicanism and the Old
Testamentary Federalism.
Republicanism refers to the concept of polity in that it imagines the State as an
institution which gives, according to the virtue of its elites, a quantity and a quality of
services whose value is, more or less, the same as the resources it receives in the form of
taxes or, on the contrary, as an instrument for introducing a form of “party despotism” (a
76
term used, together with other similar terms, in the USA in the 19th century which
corresponds to the Italian term “partitocrazia”).
The State may be thought of as: 1) an institution which conquered, with force, the
right to consider its own violence as the only legitimate use of force; 2) an institution
which had to negotiate with each local polity the right to consider its own violence the
only legitimate use of force. From a theoretical point of view, a polity is an ideal locus.
From a practical point of view, it is the concrete locus where participation is offered and
given and where the elite needs to explicitly negotiate with civil society, associations,
firms and other collective actors (thus the polity is more sensitive to the vertical
dimension of politics and less to the horizontal one).
There is a strong connection between this idea of polity, the consequent idea of
federalism and a particular form of antipolitics. This particular form of antipolitics is a
method, i.e. a conception and a practice of power like an empty space (Lefort, 1988:1719). This empty space would materialize if the place of power were left vacant. This
result is pursued hindering those who are willing to occupy the place of power. In fact,
any governing elite is exercising a power and, consequently, preventing the place of
power from actually being an empty place. In order to realize the empty space of power it
is obvious, therefore, that the objective may only be reached by renouncing. In this sense,
the method of “dedizioni” is a particular form of antipolitics where politics is to be
intended as a state of crisis and antipolitics as the “unrealistic” solution (unrealistic,
obviously, in a closed social relation).
Vico and Rosmini may be retrieved and interpreted as followers of a strategy that
is indifferent to the right-left horizontal dimension of politics and only attentive to the
ruler-ruled vertical dimension of politics, similar to that elaborated by Machiavelli in I
Discorsi and Dell’arte della Guerra, but more coherent and complete. In other words, the
antipolitical strategy of Machiavelli, Vico, Rosmini and others, has been translated in a
political strategy (named Anthropological Federalism by the exponent of the Sinistra
Storica Giuseppe Zanardelli, by the exponent of the Destra Storica Angelo Messedaglia
and his pupils Fedele Lampertico, Emilio Morpurgo, Luigi Luzzatti and by the freemason
and revolutionary antifascist Silvio Trentin). To understand this evolution from
antipolitics to a new politics, less attentive to the horizontal (right-left) dimension of
politics and more attentive to the vertical (ruler-ruled) dimension, it is important to
underline that antipolitics appears in various forms that evolve in time, acquire various
facets in space and various characteristics.
In Italy it has appeared regularly in the history of Italian politics. For the first
time, it appeared when rich Italian urban elites demonstrated their incapacity and
unwillingness to defend the lives and the goods of their citizens from the violence of the
new international relations among European nation-States. In those times, Niccolò
Machiavelli elaborated and presented, in his main works, a political strategy to face these
new problems coming from abroad. As previously told, almost a century earlier, the
Serenissima Republic had proposed to north-eastern cities the “dedizioni” as a political
strategy to defend populations and families, in the “Stato da Tera” to be constituted, from
the wars and related evils (destructions, violations, slavery) and just a few years before
the publication of Machiavelli’s masterwork (Il Principe) it demonstrated its strategy was
equal to the task of defending north-eastern territories. Machiavelli refused the
Serenissima’s political strategy in that he thought that it was not equal to the task of
constructing a “national Italian State”; this was the only strategy he considered as a real
77
solution, with regard to Italian cities and to the problem of international security (see the
last chapter of Il Principe, where the ideal of an Italian national State was introduced for
the first time in the cultural history of the peninsula).
While Machiavelli’s strategy was exclusively political (centered on institutional
actions), two centuries later, another Italian political philosopher, Giambattista Vico,
proposed a reformist strategy moving in two different directions: a) the institutional
actions and their consequences, whether or not they were desired, assumed as the factum;
b) academic speech and knowledge considered as limited and uncertain, but capable, if
well organized, of becoming a form of verum. Vico’s philosophy was thought as a
cultural and political challenge to the political and cultural limits of Italian elites. Because
of the misunderstanding by political, religious and academic authorities, Vico’s
philosophy gradually became a cultural and antipolitical challenge to the Italian political
elites (this is the antipolitical way in which it was interpreted by Giandomenico
Romagnosi; after that, Vincenzo Cuoco theorized that the Jacobin Neapolitan Republic
failed in 1799 because of the fact that Neapolitan revolutionaries had not applied Vico’s
antipolitical theories).
In Italy, as a reaction to the disappointments induced by the great French
Revolution, there were two important (and minor) antipolitical projects which were
elaborated with the aim of proposing two alternative processes to ideological practices
and to the right-left dimension of politics: the by now almost forgotten pamphlet by
Vittorio Alfieri, Misogallo (the pamphlet was strongly critical of the great French
Revolution, of French culture and of France) and the political philosophy of Antonio
Serbati Rosmini who strongly influenced a minority of intellectuals. Alfieri’s unpolitical
analysis was culturally neutralized when considered as an oddity or a form of dislike of
French people. Rosmini’s antipolitical analysis would have remained almost fruitless had
it not been represented as a vision complementary to Vico’s analysis. In this sense, there
was a revolutionary formulation of Vico’s philosophy when it was presented in the laic
version of revolutionary movements during the Italian Risorgimento, and an
antirevolutionary formulation of the same philosophy, when it was presented in the
Catholic version.
The antipolitical theories elaborated by Machiavelli, Vico, Rosmini, Romagnosi,
and others, guided by the memory of the “dedizioni”, became a political strategy, that
was named “Anthropological Federalism” after the unity of Italy, with the abovedescribed political theories and the practices of Zanardelli, Messedaglia, Lampertico,
Morpurgo, Luzzatti and Trentin. Anthropological Federalism implies the polity’s
centrality and participation. Claude Lefort explains the practice of democracy as a
practice where the locus of power is only temporarily occupied (antipolitics as the
aspiration to leave the locus of power empty). Similarly, in the years immediately
following 1989, a few leaders of western European movements thought it was important
to organize post-communism democracy as actual emptiness, i.e. as a locus of power to
be occupied by tables for negotiation and not by elected representatives.
7. CONCLUSIONS IN FORM OF QUESTIONS
First question: what is Padania and why is it as it is? As we have just explained, Padania
may be, and has been in different periods, three different things: 1) Padania is the basin of
78
the Po, i.e. three regions (Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont, Lombardy) and part of other regions
(Trentino, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna). In this form, Padania is, or may be, the
expression of a regulative order (Regulierungsordnung) and the consequent federalism is,
or may be, a real polity operating as an open social relation (see Weber, 1980, I:41, 46,
50); 2) Padania is northern Italy, i.e. eight regions (Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont, Lombardy,
Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna). In
this form, Padania is, or may be, the expression of a closed social relation (ibid.:41) and
the consequent Federalism is, or may be, a real system operating as a closed social
relation (ibid.); 3) Padania is half of Italy, i.e. eleven regions (Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont,
Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Liguria, EmiliaRomagna, Toscana, Umbria and the Marches). In this sense it is a “Great Padania”.
“Great Padania” is an electoral strategy to transform an important local party (the Lega
Nord) in a determining national party. In fact, the concept of Padania, when intended as
Great Padania, was proposed in order to have a possibility to advance during the crisis of
the Italian left. If it is intended as a federalist system (it is not possible to intend the Great
Padania as a federalist polity), it will be a consequence of the little culture of federalist
politicians, even if I believe that they are aware of the limits of these concepts.
We may speak of a crisis of the Italian left in that, in the 2008 political elections,
the Lega Nord received 8% of votes in Emilia-Romagna and, in the 2009 European
elections it received 11% of votes in Emilia-Romagna and, more or less, 5% of votes in
Tuscany, the Marches and Umbria. Are those successes proofs of the realistic possibility
of a federal system based on a Great Padania? It is possible! In my opinion, electoral
successes in the Red Italian Belt (Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria and the Marches)
are the consequences of two factors: 1) the crisis of ideologies and the lack of innovative
ideas in the leftwing parties; 2) the crisis of the cooperative firms and of many industrial
districts (see the well studied district of Prato where the Lega Nord received a lot of votes
and where non-EU entrepreneurs are de-structuring traditional districts).
Second question: what kind of federalist reform is going to be produced in Italy?
It is not clear, at the moment, whether the Lega Nord and the rightist coalition are going
to realize a form of federalism or a reform of the State according to the New Public
Management principles. Even with the new law on Fiscal Federalism (Law n. 42 of May
5, 2009), which needs many administrative acts to become operative, we cannot be sure
whether the objective is going to be Fiscal Federalism or whether it is a way to load the
southern regions with the cost of a more balanced budget.
Last but not least, it is not clear: 1) why electors voting Lega Nord, and implicitly
demanding a form of federalism, are more numerous in Veneto than in Lombardy (where
the Lega was born) and whether they want the same things?; 2) whether the new electoral
consensus obtained in the Red Belt is a consequence of the search of a federalist reform
or of the aspiration to defend traditional small firms vis-à-vis new forms of social capital
“bonding”. Thus, it is not clear whether we are going to obtain a federal State or to obtain
a way to downsize the Italian welfare state out of the southern regions’ pockets.
At the moment, we have on the agenda three political issues on the theme of State
reform: 1) the Lega Nord’s project of a federalist State (centred on the regions); 2) a
bipartisan strategy of modernization of the State (according to principles of New Public
Management); 3) the need to control (and to reduce) National Debt. One of the most
important federalist reforms (the horizontal subsidiarity) is a strategic way of reforming
the State shared with NPM strategies and with practices of patronage. Thus, we ignore
79
whether the result, for instance, of Law n. 142 dated 1990 (on the autonomy of local
institutions) has been or will be more federalism, more efficiency or more patronage (but
I suspect it is going to be the third hypothesis). On Fiscal Federalism, we may say that the
recent law (May 5, 2009) on fiscal federalism may be interpreted as a way of obtaining a
responsive autonomy or as a way of drawing out of the pockets of southern citizens the
cost of control of the National Debt (and I suspect it will be the second hypothesis).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Rosmini, A. S. (1997), Delle cinque piaghe della Santa Chiesa, Roma, San Paolo
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81
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF STATE RESTRUCTURING AND THE
REGIONAL UNEVEN TRANSITION TO AFTER-FORDISM IN BELGIUM
Stijn Oosterlynck
Lecturer in Urban Sociology, Dept. of Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of
Antwerp
1. INTRODUCTION: OLD AND NEW REGIONALISMS
Regionalism is a complex field of study but much recent literature revolves around either
ethnic regions or successful growth regions (Keating, 1998; Syssner, 2006). The former is
sometimes dubbed “old regionalism” because it is allegedly typical of the 1960s and 1970s
and focuses on the political mobilization of ethno-nationalist movements, mostly located in
some sort of periphery, against the central state due to uneven economic development and
cultural differences with the centre. The current resurgence of interest in regionalism, which
in the “new regionalism” literature is predominantly theorized as a techno-economic
phenomenon, argues that (subnational) regions are the building blocks of the new global
economy. However, despite the different foci of the “old” and the “new” regionalism studies,
they are haunted by the same fundamental question, namely what exactly constitutes a region
(Keating, 1998; MacLeod and Jones, 2001)?
As the political-economic geographer Martin Jones argues, in the new regionalism
literature regions have become a “slippery and somewhat meaningless concepts for discussing
differently scaled and territorialized economic, social, cultural and political assemblages”
(Jones, 2004:162). With “differently scaled”, Jones refers to a body of work in human
geography where globalization is interpreted in terms of the “relativization of scale”. The
relativization of scale refers to the observation that the national scale and the actors associated
with it have lost their dominance in organizing economic flows, social life, cultural processes
and political actions and the attempts that are made by actors active on a variety of other
spatial scales to establish the dominance of the scale(s) on which they are active (Jessop,
2004). The contemporary resurgence of the (subnational) regional scale and regional actors is
then seen as part of this ongoing struggle to establish a new dominant scale(s) from which
socio-economic life can be regulated (Brenner, 2000; Jessop, 1999). This historicized
perspective on the resurgence of regions, which treats spatial scales not as pre-given but as
socially constructed over time (Swyngedouw, 1997), leads to the following three claims about
the nature of regionalism. Firstly, regions are not pre-given but have a history, being actively
made and remade through social struggle. Secondly, regionalism is neither primarily
economic nor primarily political (hence neither “old” nor “new”), but essentially a politicaleconomic phenomenon produced through historically specific articulations of regionalized
political and economic processes. Thirdly, culture, understood as semiosis, plays a decisive
83
role in the making and re-making of regions. Social groups actively imagine particular spaces
as regions and thus constitute themselves as regional subjects.
In this paper, the above perspective will be applied to Flemish regionalism. More
specifically, the central research question in this paper is as follows: how and why were a
particular set of political and economic activities and processes imagined and institutionalized
as the Flemish region? The roots of the imagination and institutionalization of the Flemish
region go back a long time in history to the 19th century (Zolberg, 1974). However, despite its
long history, I will focus here on the more contemporary period of the early 1980s, which, as I
will argue both on theoretical and empirical grounds, was a crucial moment of regional
imagination and institutionalization. From a theoretical perspective, the early 1980s witnessed
an important shift in theories about the sources and geography of socio-economic
development. In the frantic search for a successor to national Fordist modes of economic
growth and regulation, innovation and knowledge were identified as the key sources of
growth in the after-Fordist era and these sources of growth were argued to be regionally
embedded and regulated (Storper, 1999; Piore and Sabel, 1984). From an empirical
perspective, this shift in thinking about the sources and geography of socio-economic
development was reflected in Belgium as well, at around the same time that industrial policy
competencies were decentralized and moved to the regional governments. The transition from
Fordist to after-Fordist modes of economic governance in Belgium, and Flanders more
particularly, hence makes a very good case to analyze how regions are imagined and
institutionalized from a political economy perspective.
2. POLITICIZING THE GEOGRAPHY OF AFTER-FORDISM
The crisis of Fordist modes of economic growth and regulation in the second half of the 1970s
intensified patterns of regional uneven economic development. While old industrial regions
suffered massive job losses and unemployment due to deindustrialization, high tech regions
and craft-based industrial districts started emerging. Economic geographers picked upon the
latter regional success stories to claim that regions, variously termed industrial districts,
learning regions, regional innovation systems, new industrial spaces, etc. have become key
sites to acquire global competitive advantage and the privileged sites of strategic economic
governance (Scott, 1998; Moulaert and Sekia, 2003; Lagendijk, 2001). “New Regionalists”,
as these authors are commonly called, explained regional success by referring to the
territorially embedded capacities for learning, innovation and entrepreneurialism as prime
determinants for economic development (Moulaert and Sekia, 2003). These territorially
embedded socio-economic assets for development and the partnerships, institutions and
policies through which they are created and governed define the regions that, according to
New Regionalists, drive after-Fordist socio-economic development (Storper, 1999; Benko and
Pecqueur, 2001).
What is lacking in the new regionalist account of the resurgence of regions, however,
is a political economy perspective on how regions are imagined and institutionalized. Hardly
any references are made to the literature on political regionalism, federalism and territorial
politics (see e.g. Keating, 2004). New regionalists reduce regional resurgence to a quasiautomatic response to the techno-economic restructuring processes and reduce politics to the
provision of the “institutional infrastructure” that is required to support the agglomerative
forces of knowledge-intensive after-Fordist growth dynamics. Politics is only deemed
relevant insofar it has a function in creating, sustaining and regulating economic growth. This
instrumentalist and reductionist perspective on politics, as merely deriving from and
instrumental for economic processes, also fails to consider the role of the state (MacLeod and
84
Goodwin, 1999). The resurgence of the region is not so much a quasi-automatic response of
economic actors to the economic-institutional imperatives of knowledge-intensive afterFordist forms of production, but part and parcel of the rescaling of state capacities in response
to the competitive pressures of the globalizing economy. These political strategies aimed at
rescaling state capacities are often heavily contested and the object of protracted political
struggles. This implies that we cannot define the region one-sidedly on the basis of the
economic-institutional imperatives of the after-Fordist model of development neither attribute
sui generis causal powers to the region. The region should not be seen as a pre-given spatial
entity that can be defined in the abstract. From a political economy point of view, the region
is a concrete spatialization of social relations and involves political agency (Markusen, 1983).
A region is only able to “act” if a collective capacity to act is created on the regional scale.
This requires a set of public and private actors to forge alliances on a regional scale and pool
the required resources to act on shared regional interests. These interests are never objectively
pre-given, but are imagined and, when successful, institutionalized in particular organizations
or organizational procedures.
The creation of regional agency thus highlights the role of imaginaries. An imaginary
discursively constitutes a particular set of activities, actors and interests as more significant
than others and hence as an object of governance and intervention. Imaginaries mostly have
either implicit or explicit spatial dimensions and tend to be rooted in the history and make-up
of particular places. Precisely because they prioritize certain processes, actors and interests
over others, imaginaries are often contested and result from political struggles between actors
operating on various spatial scales. They mostly exhibit considerable recalcitrance against
easy instrumentalization for economic purposes. This is an important qualification for the new
regionalist preoccupation with institutional thickness (Amin and Thrift, 1994), learning
cultures (Morgan, 1997), untraded interdependencies (Storper, 1999) and economies of
association (Amin and Thrift, 1999) as mere business assets for the region in the global
marketplace.
I will now apply this political economy perspective to the regional uneven transition to
after-Fordist forms of industrial policy in Belgium and take this as an entry point into the
broader question of how the Flemish region has been imagined and institutionalized over
time. In doing so, I will move beyond the instrumentalist understanding of political and
cultural dynamics that is pre-dominant in new regionalist accounts by grounding the latter’s
insights of the importance of the cultural and institutional infrastructure of regional economies
into an analysis of the restructuring of state spatiality in the context of neo-liberal
globalization. The decentralization of the Belgian state space in 1980 and the regional uneven
economic development that has characterized Belgium since its inception makes Belgium,
and even more this particular period in its history, a promising case study to analyze
regionalism from a political economy perspective. First, it allows me to explore the politics of
the resurgence of regions and the creation of agency on the regional scale and the regionally
differentiated success of after-Fordist strategies and imaginaries. Secondly, by analyzing the
diversity in after-Fordist trajectories, the political voluntarism of many new regionalist
accounts in which political configurations are restructured automatically as a result of
economic dynamics is avoided and the structural path dependencies at work in state spate
spatial restructuring are brought to the fore. Through a focus on the spatial restructuring of the
Belgian state (e.g. federalism) political and economic processes of regionalism are connected.
85
3. STATE RESCALING AND THE CRISIS OF FORDISM IN BELGIUM
3.1.
REGIONAL
RESTRUCTURING
UNEVEN
DEVELOPMENT
AND
STATE
SPATIAL
Before I move on to the actual analysis of the regional uneven transition to after-Fordist
modes of governance, I need to give some historical background of the political economy of
Belgium. As said before, Belgium has been characterized by regional uneven economic
development since its inception. Wallonia, the French speaking region to the south of
Belgium, was the first region on the European continent to industrialize (Mort Subite, 1990).
Throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century the region flourished on the
basis of first industrial revolution sectors, most notably coal mining and steel and glass
production. Given the high transport costs of energy and the high energy demands of the steel
industry on which economic development hinged at that time, Wallonia with its big coal
reserves was well-placed to industrialize. Over the course of the 19th century, and continuing
into the 20th century, francophone Belgian-national holding capital increased its control over
the Walloon sites of economic development and became the economic pillar of the unitary
Belgian state (Kurgan-van Hentenryk, 1996; Cottenier et al., 1989). After the Second World
War decline set in, Belgian-national holding capital gradually withdrew its investments from
the Walloon industries and up until today Wallonia is still struggling with its pre-Fordist
economic heritage. Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region to the North of the country, was,
except for a few pockets of industry in the cities of Ghent and Antwerp, largely a poor,
underdeveloped agricultural region throughout most of the 19th century and the first decades
of the 20th century. From the 1930s onwards, but accelerating massively in the 1960s and
more or less in parallel with Walloon decline, Flanders industrialized on the basis of second
industrial revolution sectors such as car manufacturing and consumer durables. This rapid
industrialization process was financed mainly by multinational capital (notably from the US
and Germany), which pushed Belgian-national holding capital in a secondary role.
Multinational capital was supported by Flemish small and medium sized companies in the
non-monopoly sectors or supply for multinational production.
The political dynamics in Belgium have been strongly shaped by a territorialized
language conflict (Murphy, 1988). Over the course of the 20th century language politics was
gradually transformed into “communitarian” politics, i.e. a socio-political conflict between
geographically separated cultural-linguistic communities that defend different societal models
(Huyse, 1980). Different ideas were perceived to exist in Wallonia and Flanders about how
capital and labour and catholics and seculars could live together. Communitarian politics put a
lot of pressure on the unitary spatial organization of the Belgian state. Flemish nationalists,
inspired by the Flemish language struggle, demanded mainly cultural autonomy. But despite
the pre-dominantly cultural focus of Flemish nationalism, the economic wing of the Flemish
movement aimed for more regional economic autonomy (Moulaert and Willekens, 1984). The
Flemish economic elite, gathered around the Flemish employer’s organization VEV (Flemish
Economic Association), felt that, within the Belgian institutional context, it was increasingly
difficult to adapt to the rapidly changing international economic conditions. The
decentralization of the Belgian state then became a political strategy to weaken the national
state, in which contending socio-economic actors such as Belgian-national holding capital and
the Walloon labour movement had a strong position. The Walloon federalist movement on the
other hand, reinforced by the frustration of the Walloon labour movement about Walloon
86
economic decline, pushed for economic autonomy (Quévit and Aiken, 1978). Regional
economic autonomy, they felt, would give them control over the instruments of economic
governance, which they now had to share with what they perceived as the socio-economically
conservative Flemish political-economic elite that dominated the Belgian state (“l’état Belgoflamand”).
Increasing centrifugal pressures on the unitary Belgian state finally gave way to a
wave of state spatial restructuring. The 1st October of 1980 marked a crucial moment in the
decentralization of the Belgian state. The Flemish Community acquired legal personality, i.e.
its own territory, competencies, law-making and executive power and financial responsibility.
In 1981 the Flemish Executive left the federal government and became the Flemish
government. A similar process occurred for the Walloon region. The regionalization of the
Belgian state space occurred at around the same time as the crisis of Fordism prompted the
emergence of new regionalist theories. This offers a unique opportunity to evaluate how well
different new regionalist theories explain the political economy of regional resurgence in the
context of globalization. As I argued before, Belgium’s long tradition of regionalism allows
us to explore the articulation between the current resurgence of the region and older forms of
regionalism. In addition, the strong cultural-linguistic dimension of Belgian regionalism
highlights how current economic regionalization strategies draw on cultural and political
resources and attributes developed in earlier phases of regionalist struggle.
3.2. THE EMERGENCE OF AFTER-FORDIST IMAGINARIES
Like many other governments in Western Europe in the early 1980s the Belgian federal
government and the new regional governments were confronted with high unemployment and
a dwindling competitive position. Governments everywhere were muddling through various
economic strategies in a continued attempt to address the crisis of Fordism. As in any moment
of crisis, discourses on the roots of and most appropriate solution to what was perceived as a
structural (rather than merely conjunctural) economic crisis abounded. Among the
proliferation of crisis discourses, after-Fordist imaginaries, which later crystallized under the
heading of ‘new regionalism’, gradually became predominant, most notably in the field of
industrial policy. They highlighted industrial renewal through the introduction of new
technologies as the most significant process sustaining successful economies and
entrepreneurs, knowledge workers and venture capitalists as the most significant agencies
driving this process. The state was imagined as restricting its interventions in the economy to
supply side policies. For reasons mentioned before, these agencies and processes were
imagined as being primarily regional in character.
In Belgium, after-Fordist imaginaries circulated and informed, to different degrees,
policy making on every scale of government. On the Belgian-national scale, the Belgian
federal Minister for science policy and planning Philippe Maystadt was convinced that microelectronics was a crucial future growth sector for the Belgian economy. He proposed an action
program for micro-electronics based technologies in 1982, despite the fact that most industrial
policy competencies had been decentralized to the regional scale of government. The federal
Minister for Economy Mark Eyskens equally thought about new ways for industrial policy
and saw venture capital as an important agent of industrial renewal. He proposed fiscal and
other measures to promote venture capital.
In Wallonia the discursive resonance of after-Fordist imaginaries was present, but in a
weaker form than on the Belgian scale and in Flanders. In the early 1980s there still was a
strong belief in the viability of the Walloon national sectors (Quévit, 2005). Many Walloon
politicians believed that investments in bricks and other material assets were superior and
87
more secure than investments in immaterial assets like those required for nurturing afterFordist industries. However, despite all this after-Fordist imaginaries gained some currency in
Wallonia as well, be it with a stronger state as a much more significant actor than is usual in
these kind of imaginaries. The Christian-democrat Minister for New Technologies and Small
and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Walloon regional government Melchior Wathelet
launched “Opération Athéna” (De Batselier, 1991; Institut Jules Destrée, 1995). Opération
Athéna was an industrial policy program that aimed for the renewal of the Walloon industrial
structure through the development of new technologies. The Walloon government organized
Athéna days and business seminars, published the monthly magazine and gave financial
incentives to small and medium-sized enterprises that participated in the Athéna operation.
Wathelet also created the “Club Athéna Technologies – Education” with the aim to bring
together all Walloon “living forces” to stimulate collaboration between universities, research
centres, the government and the private sector in the field of new technologies (Dupont,
1987). In Flanders, finally, after-Fordist imaginaries were also highly discursively resonant.
The chair of the Flemish regional government, the Christian-democrat politician Gaston
Geens, very much focussed his time and energy on industrial policy and set up the Third
Industrial Revolution in Flanders action (henceforth DIRV-action). With the DIRV-action
Geens aimed to boost Flemish economic self-awareness and re-position the Flemish economy
as a dynamic, entrepreneurial and high technology region in the centre of Europe. To that end,
he organized the highly successful international technology fair Flanders Technology
International, focussed financial support on three “sectors of the future” (micro-electronics,
biotechnology and new materials) and organized technology transfer by bringing researchers
and entrepreneurs together on “technology days”.
3.3. THE REGIONAL UNEVEN TRANSITION TO AFTER-FORDIST FORMS OF
INDUSTRIAL POLICY
However, despite the discursive resonance (to different degrees) of after-Fordist imaginaries
on every scale of government in Belgium, only the Flemish regional government succeeded in
making the transition from Fordist to after-Fordist modes of industrial policy. Although afterFordist imaginaries were resonating both in Wallonia and Flanders, but also on the Belgian
national scale, only on the Flemish regional scale were actors successful in acting upon this
imaginary and embedding it solidly in the operation of the Flemish state’s economic
governance strategies. I will argue here that any explanation of this regional uneven transition
to after-Fordist modes of industrial governance must take into account both economic
structures and forms of political and economic agency. I will look at those two explanatory
factors in turn for each of the three government scales, namely Belgian-national, Walloonregional and Flemish-regional and then (for the Flemish case) integrate them into a more
narrative account of how after-Fordist imaginaries in Flanders were used as part of a broader
regional search for legitimacy and furthered the institutionalization of the Flemish state space.
Despite the attempts of federal minister Maystadt to focus industrial and economic
policy on innovation and new industrial sectors in the first half of the 1980s, the Belgiannational scale of government remained throughout most of the 1980s pre-occupied with the
so-called “national sectors” as the part of the economy that deserved most urgent government
attention. The national sectors were the five traditional economic sectors (textiles, steel, coal
mining, shipbuilding and glass) that were in serious difficulties at that time. Because the crisis
of the steel industry seemed to threaten the very survival of the Belgian state, the Belgian
government considered the steel crisis as a “national problem”, which explains why the
national sectors did not become a regional responsibility when industrial policy was
88
regionalized in 1980. The other national sectors, evenly divided over Flanders and Wallonia
to avoid complaints about regional discrimination, were awarded similar treatment for their
restructuring, which implied that the financial support they needed came from the national
budget. The sheer urgency, policy attention and financial resources needed to save the
national sectors and the high number of jobs associated with these sectors, meant that even if
some ministers were attracted to after-Fordist imaginaries on industrial renewal, they were not
able to prioritize the processes, actors and interests singled out as most significant by afterFordist imaginaries. The weight of the restructuring of the national sectors on the national
government’s budget and policy space was such that the discursive resonance of after-Fordist
themes did not lead to a reorganization of organizational rules and institutional procedures in
the field of Belgian industrial policy.
The Walloon regional government was confronted with even stronger versions of
structural lock in. The industrial structure of Wallonia was heavily specialized in coal mining
and steel manufacturing. A sectoral crisis of the steel industry and coal mining hence
immediately turned into a regional crisis. Because of the lack of diversification of the
Walloon industrial structure there was no viable alternative to the slow and painful
restructuring of the national sectors (Moulaert, 2005). A quick restructuring program as with
the coal mines in Flanders was virtually impossible since there was no sector of the economy
that could absorb the social and financial costs of restructuring. The slowly emerging afterFordist sectors in Wallonia were too localized and limited in job creation and could not at all
outweigh the continuing decline of the largely pre-Fordist parts of the Walloon industrial
structure (Vandermotten, 2005). The economic structure of the Flemish region was very
different from that of Wallonia. Although Flanders also had its national sectors, namely
textiles and shipbuilding, its economic structure was much more diverse, with multinationals
active in various sectors and an extensive network of home-grown export-oriented SME’s.
The social and financial costs of the reconversion of the national sectors could more easily be
absorbed by healthier parts of the regional economy. Because of the sector and job diversity
of its industrial structure, the Flemish economy was more open to alternative economic
imaginaries focussing on newly emerging actors, processes and interests.
The structural make-up of an economy does not in itself determine transitions shifts in
industrial policy. In order to fully understand these, one also needs to look for collective
agencies that act strategically to maintain or transform these economic structures and possibly
bring about these shifts. From this perspective as well, there are a number of significant
differences between the type of collective agencies present at the Walloon and Flemishregional scales and the Belgian-national scale. I already explained how the Belgian national
government’s industrial policy debates and interventions were dominated by concerns about
restructuring declining companies and industries. The strong pressure of Belgian-national
holding capital, which for the past decades had been using its (dwindling, but nevertheless
still very real) power within the national state to make the latter financially assist the
rationalization of the Walloon industry which they controlled, and the socialist trade union,
whose grassroots was situated in the declining sectors, severely reduced the Belgian
government’s capacities to shift its focus to more future directed parts of the economy.
Importantly, the Belgian employers’ organization VBO, the official representative of the
Belgian entrepreneurs, is structured on the basis of sector federations. VBO hence tended to
be dominated by concerns of its biggest sector federations and hence was less likely to act as
a vehicle for the promotion of after-Fordist imaginaries.
Wallonia had no economic elite that identified itself as Walloon and could hence
articulate the Walloon economic interest. The economic elite that controlled most of the
Walloon economy during its industrialization was the national francophone holding elite
located in Brussels and, over the course of the second half of the 20th century, had gradually
89
turned its back on Wallonia. In its absence, the socialist movement (party and trade union)
gradually became the dominant socio-political force in Wallonia, but was economically,
socially and culturally too much embedded in the traditional sectors of the economy to
envision new after-Fordist trajectories for the Walloon economy and, despite its politicalinstitutional power, had little access to the economic decision-makers (Vandermotten, 2005).
On the Flemish-regional scale, however, the language struggle against francophone
dominance within the Belgian state space had nurtured a Flemish-minded economic elite,
organized around the Flemish employers’ organization VEV. This elite is of much younger
origin than the national francophone holding elite and hence less institutionally and culturally
embedded in the traditional industries. Also, VEV is less structured as a conventional interest
group, but more as a movement striving for Flemish economic emancipation. This aim is
reflected in their organizational model as their members are not sector federations but
companies. The implication is that they did not have to take into account traditional sectors as
much as was the case for the Belgian employer’s organization VBO and that new and
innovative start-up companies have an equal voice in the organization. Remarkably, it was in
the research offices of VEV that a Flemish version of after-Fordist imaginaries, namely the
“Third Industrial Revolution in Flanders”, was born. The successful creation of a distinctively
regional collective capacity to act around this imaginary would lead to a shift to after-Fordist
modes of governance in Flanders.
3.4. A REGIONAL SEARCH FOR LEGITIMACY
The diversified economic structure of Flanders and the presence of actors that had an interest
in pushing for the development of new and innovative sectors combined to produce a
transition to after-Fordist modes of industrial governance on the Flemish scale. The presence
of export-oriented SMEs and multinationals, which were critically exposed to foreign
competition, made the Flemish economic decision-makers critically aware of the need to
direct attention to innovation and new technologies. Moreover, VEV and the first Flemish
government both had an important stake in furthering the institutionalization of the Flemish
scale of governance and joined forces around the DIRV-action, which rolled out an afterFordist mode of industrial governance in Flanders. Under influence of the literature on new
technologies published in the 1970s, VEV started thinking about the links and synergies
between education, production and entrepreneurs. The chairman of VEV asked its research
office to produce a report about new technologies and what it could do for the Flemish
regional economy. The report, which was finished around 1979, developed a Flemish version
of the after-Fordist imaginaries and called for a third industrial revolution in Flanders. The
report identified the need to change people’s attitudes towards new technologies as crucially
important. Especially the trade unions feared that new technologies would be used to
rationalize and destroy employment. The report also suggested the establishment of five
technology groups, where researchers and entrepreneurs would exchange innovative
knowledge and technologies.
When the first Flemish regional government was established the chair of VEV took
the report to the government’s chair Gaston Geens and advised him to read it. At that time
there was a general economic pessimism among the population. Unemployment figures were
soaring, especially among young people, the population feared devaluation and the interest
rates were very high. Meanwhile the Belgian national government was embarking on a
national crisis policy based on a devaluation, imposed wage restraints, budget cuts,
restructuring loss-making sectors and companies and tax reforms in favour of capital to repair
the competitive position of Belgian companies. Because there was no social consensus for
90
these crisis measures the government had to bypass the neo-corporatist negotiation procedures
by using fast track powers and hence became increasingly authoritarian (Mommen, 1987).
Against this background Geens could use the idea of the Third Industrial Revolution in
Flanders to position himself and his government as the “saviour” with a much more positive
approach to the crisis (Zeeuwts, 2005). This positive approach to the crisis was based on
increased co-operation between universities, entrepreneurs and the government, the
promotion of entrepreneurialism and the introduction of new technologies. Geens speculated
that if his government could be seen as positively solving the crisis, then he could mobilize
the general population behind further regionalization demands to the Belgian-national state.
VEV from its part was competing with the Belgian-national employers’ organization VBO for
the representation of the employers’ interest in Flanders. Launching the DIRV allowed VEV
to present itself as the more dynamic and entrepreneurial part of the economic elite. VEV and
the new Flemish government thus found each other in a regional search for legitimacy and an
alliance around the idea of a DIRV-action that would boost the legitimacy of regional
governance level in which they both had a stake.
The DIRV-action was envisioned as a movement to break with the sluggish economy,
distrust in the future and the lack of interest in innovation and to instil new dynamism,
optimism and enthusiasm in the business world and the general population (Geens and
Cuypers, 1987). The symbol of DIRV was a human hand shaking a robot hand – implying
that technology was not the enemy, but our friend. The DIRV-action wanted to show the
opportunities offered by new technologies to create a broad social basis of support for their
application in the production processes. DIRV proved to be largely successful in creating a
more positive perception of new technologies, with the high number of people attending the
international technology fair Flanders Technology International as one indicator of this
success. The DIRV-action appealed to the many unemployed in Flanders who suddenly
caught a glimpse of hope that there would still be some place for them in the economy of the
future.
However, underlying the DIRV-action and the alliance formed between the new
Flemish government and the Flemish economic elite organized around VRV is a more
fundamental shift in the imagination of the role of the state in the economy. Chair of the new
Flemish government Geens wanted to create “a state that knows its place” (Cornillie, 2005).
DIRV focussed on unleashing the Flemish private entrepreneurial potential by rolling back
Keynesian state intervention. Geens considered state planning to be a burden on economic
growth. Informing the DIRV-action was a concept of the state that restricts itself to supply
side policies and leaves the economy to entrepreneurs. Geens stressed the importance of
“Schumpeterian entrepreneurs” over and over again and believed that the government only
had to stimulate innovation and bring different actors together, but that the actual decisions
could only be made by private entrepreneurs (Geens and Cuypers, 1987). The nature of the
DIRV-action as a campaign centred on private capital and entrepreneurs also followed from
the way it came into existence. The original idea travelled from the VEV study offices to the
Flemish government, but the further development of the DIRV campaign also happened in
close collaboration with VEV and hence bore a strong entrepreneurial mark.
4. CONCLUSION
The above analysis of the regional uneven transition to after-Fordist modes of industrial
governance confirms the need for a political economy approach of the contemporary
resurgence of the region. New regionalist accounts of the new geography of economic
development trajectories, focussing on the importance of entrepreneurialism, industry91
university co-operation and innovation in knowledge-intensive after-Fordist models of
economic development, indeed seem to concur with the imaginaries of policy-makers on
various government scales in the early 1980s. After-Fordist imaginaries to different degrees
resonated with policy-makers and they were embedded with different degrees of success in
state strategies. In the Flemish case acting on after-Fordist imaginaries provided a way for
different public and private actors to further the imagination and institutionalization of the
Flemish region, hence their success in combining the required resources and powers to act
collectively in implementing after-Fordist modes of industrial policy. Regions, as a
geographically delimited set of actors, interests and activities, are thus not pre-given as actors,
but require a lot of political work to be turned into self-confident regional subjects. The
success of this political work is highly dependent on the existing political-economic structures
and available actors and cannot be assumed to follow quasi-automatically from institutionaleconomic pressures.
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FORCED TO RESPOND TO GLOBALIZATION.
THE DISEMBEDDEDNESS OF ITALIAN INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS
AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Anna Cento Bull
University of Bath, Department of European Studies and Modern Languages
1. INTRODUCTION
Industrial districts have traditionally been defined as socially embedded systems of
production, where firms are not simply clustered in space but are interlinked in horizontal
networks and/or vertical production chains and also rely on face-to-face social interaction
and shared social values. The latter, in turn, facilitate a constant flow of information among
local firms, thus contributing to the spread of innovation, and provide the basis for
generalized trust, thus reducing uncertainty and opportunism. In short, industrial districts
were “self-propelling and self-referential (that is, “closed” in their set of production
factors) systems” (Mariotti et al., 2008). In the last two decades, this canonical and
relatively static approach to industrial districts has given way to a much more dynamic
view of their evolution and adaptability, in the light of greatly changed external conditions.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Italian industrial districts were undergoing a
period of uncertainty and having to face the early impact of the process of globalization.
After a decade in which they had been hailed as a particularly successful model of
industrial production, so much so that its “replication” in both developed and developing
countries was often recommended, industrial districts appeared in difficulty and in some
cases their imminent demise was even predicted. In the 1990s, however, most districts
reacted successfully to their loss of competitiveness through a process of restructuring,
which led to their internal reorganization and, increasingly, to their internationalization
(Rabellotti et al., 2009). However, not all districts followed the same evolutionary path.
This paper explores the economic and social changes that have occurred in
Lombardy and the north-eastern industrial districts, since this is the area which constitutes
the original stronghold of the Lega Nord, and also the one where the party experienced an
extraordinary revival in the 2008 political elections. The paper will address the nature of
these changes and their impact upon the local society, particularly in terms of growing
tensions and insecurity which include, but go well beyond, the fears of immigration and
crime commonly portrayed in the media.
95
2. THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF NORTH-EASTERN INDUSTRIAL
DISTRICTS.
Broadly speaking, Italian districts began to diverge in terms of their productive systems
and industrial strategies as far back as the late 1980s. Lombardy and the north east of the
country developed an internal configuration based on the hierarchical complementarity of
“leading” and “satellite” firms, whereas those in Emilia-Romagna and the central regions
tended to develop a more horizontal system of production. The emergence of a leadingsatellite firm structure was outlined in the late 1980s by Lorenzoni and Ornati (1988) and
Lazerson (1988), while their development and role in the industrial district of Como was
analyzed by the author in the early 1990s (Cento Bull, Pitt and Szarka, 1993). More
recently, this model was defined as a “localized networked firms’ model: it is characterized
by the presence of a medium or large-size leader firm which organizes and controls the
local industrial system” (Burroni, 2003:186). The advantages of this model are a high
capacity for innovation and co-ordination on the part of the leading firms and a rapid
diffusion of innovation down to the satellite firms. By contrast, in the other regions,
according to Burroni, a “localized network of firms’ model prevails: it is characterized by
the prevalence of small firms tied together by horizontal linkages” (ibid.).
A different typology differentiates between industrial districts characterized by
static networks, flexible networks or “evolutionary network-firms” (Belussi and Arcangeli,
1998). The first type was judged to be the weakest competitor, the last type the strongest,
where “networks are less and less stable; firms will frequently revise their webs of
alliances, abandoning some and joining other (often new ones)” (ibid.:421). In addition, the
last type involved a clear process of internationalization of production: “What is probably
on the way is not the end of ‘local economies’ or ‘network-based organizations localized in
spatial milieus’, but the passage from short-length networks to long-distance networks,
where the importance of spatial connections for some activities may be reduced”
(ibid.:426). The authors made it clear that each type was to be found in different areas of
Italy, although they categorized two of the best known districts in central Italy, Prato and
Carpi, as “flexible networks”, while Montebelluna, in the Veneto, was cited as an example
of the third type.
In the last decade, the process of internationalization has proceeded at a fast rate for
nearly all districts, and this has determined a further transformation of the production
process and an increasing differentiation not only between districts but also between firms
operating within the same district. The key factor in determining this uneven evolution of
industrial districts and firms has been their different attitudes “towards export and FDI
[Foreign Direct Investment] in internationalization” (Cainelli and Zoboli, 2004:19). Given
that internationalization involves the disembeddedness of local production systems, the
dismantling of local networks and their replacement with “trans-local networks”, an
evolution of this kind has proved both difficult and painful: “industrial districts do not
adapt easily to the new paradigm” (Mariotti, Mutinelli and Piscitello, 2008:720). In the
same study, the authors assess the degree of internationalization of Italian industrial
districts and conclude that the presence of “leader firms” increases “the likelihood that
districts will internationalize. Moreover, the leadership of large firms exerts a composite
effect on the degree of internationalization of other (non-leader) district firms. It increases
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the range of foreign growth opportunities available to smaller firms, but it eventually leads
to a prevalent substitution effect: the internationalization of large firms prompts an inertial
behaviour by the other (smaller) firms, which do not develop any independent ability to
grow internationally” (ibid.:731).
Although the authors do not distinguish between districts in the North East and in
the Centre, it is possible to infer from the previously outlined structural evolution of northeastern industrial districts that many of them will have experienced such a growing
dichotomy between internationalized (and hence increasingly disembedded) larger firms
and non-internationalized (still embedded) smaller ones. This trend has in fact been
detected in various studies. One of these (Bergamasco, 2008) estimated that the process of
internationalization was more advanced among firms located in the North West (53,8 per
cent) and North East (53,4 per cent) compared to the Centre (41,8 per cent) and South (31
per cent) and also that the larger firms, with more than 50 employees, were the most
internationalized. Focusing on the industrial districts of the Veneto, Spaventa and Monni
(2007) argued that while the larger firms had profited from internationalization, the smaller
ones “get no returns from the process, bearing instead all the costs” (ibid.:12). In particular,
these firms started to lose clients and often ended up closing. This explained, in their view,
why the region’s steady growth in exports in textiles, clothing and leather, registered
between 1991 and 2001, was accompanied by a progressive loss of employment. With
reference to the industrial district of Montebelluna, the authors showed that 52.3 per cent of
the firms producing shoes had delocalized to Romania. When disaggregated, the figures
showed a polarized picture: while nearly 90 per cent of firms with more than 100
employees and over 50 per cent of firms with 21-100 employees had delocalized by 2004,
the percentage dropped to less than 16 per cent for firms with 2-10 employees and just 4
per cent for those with 1 employee (ibid.:21). The authors even hypothesized that the
process of internationalization by the larger firms “might lead to the progressive weakening
of linkages inside the original districts and eventually […] to the dissolving of the district
itself. ‘Closed due to delocalization in Romania’” (ibid.:25). Similarly, Tattara, De Giusti,
and Constantin (2006) observed that in the North East “the lengthening of the productive
chains involves the loss of a number of local subcontractors, with easily imaginable
repercussions in occupational terms”.
A somewhat different perspective has been put forward by other scholars. Savona
and Schiattarella (2004) argued that internationalization has gone hand in hand with
economic growth and employment. Various annual surveys carried out by the Fondazione
Nord Est have been similarly sanguine. One of these studies, published in 2008, argued
that, after an initial phase of disorientation, the smaller firms had been able to improve the
quality of their products and to link up to an international value chain (Marini and Oliva
2008:11). Admittedly, those firms which were unable to innovate had to close down or
were sold off, but overall the effect on employment levels had been modest, since “even
during the most difficult years (between 2001 and 2005) for the north-eastern economy the
rate of unemployment remained below 4 per cent” (ibid.:11). The previous year, a similar
survey (Marini and Oliva, 2007:9) also asserted that, while the larger firms had been the
ones responsible for internationalizing, they had been able to carry along their minor
“colleagues” – i.e. those firms with 10-49 employees - which had subsequently also
experienced positive growth.
Despite its relatively optimistic readings of the changes related to
internationalization and of the districts’ ability to react successfully to the challenges of
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globalization, the studies by the Fondazione Nord Est also brought to light how such
changes had engendered growing tension and stress within districts. The available evidence
does indeed point to a situation in which turbulence and uncertainty have come to dominate
industrial relations in all districts and how these have reverberated more widely, creating a
gulf between the local economy and society. The impact of recent changes upon industrial
and social relations and attitudes is very important and will be examined later. First we will
consider another crucial dimension of the process of restructuring of industrial districts,
that is to say, the growing employment of immigrant labour and what has been termed
“inverse delocalization”.
3. INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS AND IMMIGRATION
Immigration in Lombardy and the North East has grown substantially in the last decade.
The number of resident immigrants in Lombardy rose from 419,800 in 2001 to 938,300 in
2007 (Regione Lombardia, 2008:43). In Veneto, numbers rose to 350, 215 in 2006 and
were predicted to rise over 400,000 in 2007 (Regione Veneto, 2008:16). As a result, by
2006 Lombardy had the highest percentage of immigrants (24.8 per cent), while the Veneto
came second, with 11.9 per cent (Regione Veneto, 2008:16). The vast majority resided in
the provinces with a high number of industrial districts and most of these were employed in
the manufacturing sector. Thus out of all immigrants employed in the Veneto region in
2007, 36 per cent were employed in manufacturing industry, with a further 14 per cent in
the building sector and 10 per cent in the catering industry (Regione Veneto, 2007).
According to Belussi and Sedita, immigration (or “inverse delocalization”) forms
an alternative strategy to delocalization developed by some districts. They focus on the
case of the leather district of Arzignano in the Veneto, where this strategy was adopted
largely due to a scarce propensity of local firms to transfer part of their production abroad.
The strategy, according to the authors, has so far proved successful from an economic point
of view. However, it would be misleading to categorize industrial districts on the basis of
whether they have implemented a strategy of delocalization or inverse delocalization, since
for many of them it is rather a case of these strategies being complementary rather than in
alternative. The already mentioned process of diversification within as well as between
districts means that different firms within the same district may pursue different strategies
to face external competition, and also that some firms may pursue diverse strategies
simultaneously. The reason for this is that, as many surveys point out, immigration for
many districts is not a choice but a necessity, because it responds both to demographic and
economic needs.
That immigration has been and continues to remain vital for the growth of the
north-eastern economy is well documented. As Paba and Murat (2006:194) argued,
immigration has proved a vital resource for industrial districts, not so much for ensuring
that production costs stay low, although this was also a factor, but above all for supplying a
relatively low-skilled workforce which was not available either locally or nationally.
Various studies produced under the aegis of the Fondazione Nord Est confirmed this
assessment. Thus Castiglioni and Dalla Zuanna (2002:7) calculated that the high rate of
immigration was directly linked to the positive economic performance of industrial
districts and argued that the entire production system of the Veneto depended on a high
rate of immigration, given the dramatic rate of ageing of the resident population and the
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limits to the strategy of industrial relocation abroad. According to Marini and Oliva
(2008:20-21), in order to keep the population of working age in the region at its current
level for the next twenty years, roughly 36,000 new immigrants per year were needed. This
in itself would ensure that the flow of immigrants would continue at the same rate as the
last ten years. In an earlier report (Marini, 2006:5), one of the authors was even more
explicit, claiming that “year after year, the structural nature of the migratory phenomenon
is confirmed, as it is necessary for preserving the local population as well as the labour
market. Given the current weak yet stable increase of the birth rate, the need for people
from other countries might incur a slight decrease, but certainly not come to an end”.
Another clear sign of the need for immigrant labour is given by the number of
requests put forward by employers, which were especially high in the North. In Lombardy,
for instance, in 2007 requests for immigrant labour on the part of employers rose by a third
compared to the previous year, particularly in the provinces north-east of Milan, where
most industrial districts are located (Regione Lombardia, 2008:134-135). Often the number
of requests by employers is higher than the number of admitted immigrants. As Andall
noted (2009), in 2007 the Veneto was assigned a quota of 19,110 workers, whereas the
region’s employers had requested 84,554. It is largely this discrepancy which, according to
Andall, accounts for the large presence of irregular immigrants.
In short, there is no doubt that the high rate of immigration to Lombardy and the
North East is primarily due to both economic and social needs, related to an ageing
population, a lack of unskilled labour, high labour costs and local firms’ strategies of
“inverse delocalization”. Now that the causal factors have been established, let us consider
the prevailing reactions and attitudes towards the recent changes undergone by the
economic and industrial structure, as experienced among the local society, including those
responsible for bringing about such changes.
4. RISING LEVELS OF ANXIETY AND STRESS AMONG PRODUCERS
While most commentators tend to emphasize the positive impact of both delocalization and
inverse delocalization upon the economic performance of industrial districts, which have
by and large been able to regain economic growth and competitiveness in the face of a
tough global environment, a very different picture emerges in terms of social and public
reactions to these trends. Employers themselves appear to be divided as regards their
evaluation of these changes, which again demonstrates the increasing polarization of
strategies and outcomes within districts.
Starting with attitudes among employers, the 2007 report by the Fondazione Nord
Est (Marini and Oliva, 2007:6) pointed to a growing polarization between winners and
losers, a strong sense of disorientation in the face of a radically changed economic and
social context, constant uncertainty and persisting fears of the consequences of strong
foreign competition. As concerns the latter, complaints about an “invasion” of cheap
imports from China and other far eastern countries, together with apocalyptic scenarios of
irreversible decline, have been a staple of surveys and reports on attitudes prevalent in
industrial districts since the early 2000s. In 2005, one of the worst years for the district
economy, various articles appeared in La Repubblica with alarming titles (eg., The Chinese
Spectre and The Chinese Syndrome) and even more alarming content. According to one of
these articles, Italian small firms had been crushed by the new phase of globalization,
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thereby giving vent to “protectionist nostalgia as well as anti-Europe, anti-globalization
and anti-Chinese grievances” (La Repubblica, 6 October 2005). However, competition
from abroad was only one of the causes of anxiety and uncertainty within districts.
Relations between firms within districts was another important factor, as indicated for
instance by the 2008 report of the Fondazione Nord Est (Marini and Oliva, 2008:10),
which referred specifically to the pressures placed by the larger firms upon the smaller
ones, which had as a result “stressed out the firm and labour markets”. In addition, the
report (ibid.:14) emphasized that relations between firms were compounded by the noncooperative culture of local entrepreneurs, defined as “strongly characterized by
individualism and by a culture of command”.
Various reports produced by industrial districts themselves have recently
emphasized the aggressive nature of both foreign and domestic (intra- and inter-districts)
competition and the stress it has caused at local level. For instance, a report on the situation
of the gold and silver manufacturing district of Vicenza, dating from 15 September 2006,
stated that competition from the Asian countries had become “ever more gun-blazing” and
argued that this had created a “climate […] of deep concern”, given that “many of the
negative trends which affect the sector depend on global phenomena which our firms are
subjected to and cannot influence” (Regione Veneto, 2007a). Similarly, the shoe district of
Vigevano (Lombardy) reported “strong market pressures and competition from low-cost
countries” (Vigevanoweb, s.d.), while a report for the shoe district of Verona, dating from
29 January 2007, talked of an “invasion”, which had “exploded without limits” in 2005, of
European and North-American markets by shoes made in China, Vietnam and Thailand
(Regione Veneto, 2007b). The report, similarly to the recent survey by the Fondazione
Nord Est, also painted a picture of aggressive behaviour and extremely individualistic and
competitive values among local producers, with little evidence of collaboration or
cooperation. The leather industrial district of Arzignano, also in the Veneto, went as far as
to state that, while 78 per cent of local firms considered competition from low-cost
countries to be of concern, another 78 per cent judged the district itself to be the main
source of competition (Regione Veneto, 2007c). The report specified that while
competition from abroad was felt to be of medium or modest relevance, competition from
within the district was perceived to be especially strong, indeed it was defined as
“aggressive”. It was also noted that internal competition had increased due to the
delocalization strategies of various sub-contracting firms. A specific case is that of the
textile district of Val Seriana (Lombardy), which laments a heavy loss of employment, due
to “the shift abroad, especially Romania and North Africa, of the manufacturing of
medium-quality goods” (Osservatorio Nazionale Distretti Italiani, s.d). An article in Il Sole
24 Ore (12 February 2009) recently referred to this district as the first to “run a serious risk
of de-industrialization”, painting a picture of growing discomfort, with one of the local
Mayors, from the Lega Nord, complaining of rising unemployment. According to the
article, the district had paid the price not of proving reluctant to change, but of having
opted for the wrong strategy to face up to foreign competition, thus demonstrating the
extreme negative consequences of having to operate and make strategic decisions in such
an uncertain global environment.
In this context, the strategy of delocalization was particularly targeted for criticism
among producers. As a survey carried out in October 2008 showed (Bordignon 2009a),
42.1 per cent of entrepreneurs and self-employed people in the North East stated that
delocalization represented a purely negative phenomenon, with another 49.6 per cent
100
declaring that it was positive for local firms but a risk for the economic development of the
region as a whole. Only 8.3 per cent in this category stated that it was a positive
phenomenon for both firms and the regional economy. The percentages indicating a wholly
negative reaction to delocalization among this group were higher than the average, given
that 36.1 per cent of all respondents viewed it as totally negative, whereas 58.1 per cent
judged it as risky for the regional economy, and 5.8 per cent as wholly positive.
Interestingly, negative reactions were especially high among voters of the PDL and Lega
Nord parties, and considerably lower among supporters of the PD and IDV parties. A
different survey, carried out in July 2008 (Marini, Girardi and Marzella, 2008:18) among
employers based in Treviso, recorded considerably lower negative percentages (16.8 per
cent) and higher positive reactions (23.3 per cent). Despite this, a majority of entrepreneurs
(59.9 per cent) declared that delocalization presented advantages to individual firms but
was a risky strategy for the local economy.
The strategy of “inverse delocalization” also seems to concern employers.
According to a 2006 survey, 65.2 per cent of north-eastern entrepreneurs employed
immigrant labour and 74.7 per cent judged immigration as “still an important element for
the economic and productive system of the region” (Ferraro, 2008:94). In this context,
employers seemed aware of the need to integrate this labour force in the local society and
to solve some pressing problems they encountered, above all the need for decent housing,
often due to prejudices on the part of landlords. According to a 2008 survey carried out in
the city of Treviso, only 3.7 per cent of employers considered immigration a problem,
compared to issues such as the high cost of living and inadequate transport. This contrasts
with a survey carried out in 2001 (Bordignon and Marini, 2001:5), when 40.4 per cent of
north-eastern entrepreneurs declared that immigration had to rise to address the lack of
local labour, while 46.8 per cent simultaneously stated that immigration constituted a threat
to both law and order and personal safety. Both percentages were higher than those
registered among the population as a whole (30.6 per cent and 38.6 per cent respectively).
When disaggregated, the data showed that it was mainly the smaller firms which reported
alarm for the social consequences of immigration, and above all those firms which did not
employ any immigrant labour (Bordignon and Marini, 2001:6-7). Nevertheless, even those
firms which employed immigrant labour and considered this a positive element for growth,
recorded negative attitudes in terms of its social consequences. The discrepancy between
the two surveys may indicate a growing acceptance of immigration among employers, even
though the results in Treviso may not be as relevant as those of the wider 2001 survey.
In the face of these ambivalent attitudes towards globalization and
internationalization registered among employers and entrepreneurs, it is not surprising that
relatively high feelings of stress were registered among the producing class in another
survey carried out at the end of 2008 (Favaro, 2008). The highest percentages, in fact, were
recorded among entrepreneurs, 51.1 per cent of whom declared that they felt stressed, and
workers (53.1 per cent), whereas markedly lower percentages were registered among other
social groups.
In the next section we will analyze the attitudes towards recent socio-economic
changes prevalent among the population.
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5. A DEEPENING SOCIAL MALAISE
The already mentioned annual reports by the Fondazione Nord Est have repeatedly tested
the attitudes of the population of the region towards a wide variety of economic and social
phenomena, including industrial change, economic development, immigration, quality of
life, the environment and crime. The resulting picture is one of deep insecurity or, as a
2008 survey put it, multiple “insecurities”, ranging from fear of economic decline and
rising unemployment to fear of crime and immigration, as well as fear of the environmental
impact of continuing industrial growth. Judged from a purely rational perspective, many of
these insecurities are contradictory to some extent. Thus fear of economic decline is not
easily reconcilable with fear of immigration, given that the latter has directly contributed to
the economic well-being of many districts. Similarly, fear of environmental degradation
somewhat clashes with fear of job losses in the industrial sector. Insecurity, however, is
evidently not rational, and it is precisely the contradictory nature of many of the fears
experienced by the local population which is revelatory of both a general malaise and,
more importantly, of a sense of being caught in the midst of irreconcilable trends and
unsolvable problems. This is because solving one issue would simply have the effect of
exacerbating another.
Starting with economic development, in July 2008 (Marini, Girardi and Marzella,
2008:17) a majority of respondents among the north-eastern population defined the current
phase as one of uncertainty (37.2 per cent), followed by 30.8 per cent who thought the
economy was in “difficulty”, whether temporarily (19.1 per cent) or structurally (11.7 per
cent). Overall, 61.5 per cent of residents felt that the economic situation of their area had
worsened in the last five years. In terms of the strategy of delocalization, this particular
survey registered a massive opposition to it among the population of the North East, with
55.3 per cent perceiving it as wholly negative and only 8.7 per cent as wholly positive
(ibid.:18). As we saw earlier, a lower percentage of negative attitudes (36.1 per cent) was
recorded in another survey carried out in October 2008 (Bordignon, 2009a), although even
in this survey wholly positive reactions were minimal (5.8 per cent). The July 2008 survey
also registered ambivalent attitudes among the population in terms of the benefits that
industrial growth had brought to the area, with the vast majority of respondents stating that
industrial firms had generated employment and prosperity, another 52.2 per cent stating
that they had damaged the environment and the landscape, and a further 37.9 per cent
declaring that they had brought inequality and social conflict. It is clear that many
respondents subscribed to both positive and negative judgments on the role of industry in
their area.
Assessing similar results emerging from their 2007 survey, Marini and Oliva
(2007:10) concluded that “Industry itself, in the past well accepted for delivering
development and wealth, no longer enjoys the same appeal. In fact, it is seen with
perplexity, sometimes even with aversion”. Nowhere is this as visible as when we consider
social reactions to immigration. As Bordignon (2009b) observed, regular annual surveys
carried out by Demos since 2000 to measure social attitudes towards immigration, showed
that 2008 and 2009 marked the highest incidence of respondents perceiving immigrants as
a threat to law and order and personal security: 40.1 per cent in January 2008 and 42.4 per
cent in January 2009, as opposed to 32.6 per cent in January 2007 and even lower
percentages in previous years. Results for 2008 and 2009 were similar to, but still higher
than, those recorded in the years 2000-02, indicating that there was no greater acceptance
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of this phenomenon with the passing of time, despite its increasingly obvious long-term
and indeed irreversible nature. The survey indicated that feelings of fear and insecurity in
relation to immigration were highest among respondents with a lower level of education, as
well as among those who lived in small and medium-size communes and were between 55
and 64 years of age.
A separate survey by Demos and Pi XIII, carried out in April 2007, also established
that such negative perceptions of immigrants were highest in the north east of the country.
Here, 48.6 per cent of respondents considered them a threat to law and order and personal
security, as opposed to 43.2 per cent in the country as a whole. Similarly, 42.6 per cent of
respondents in the North East stated that immigrants constituted a threat to their culture,
identity and religion, against 34.6 per cent in Italy. Interestingly, respondents in the North
East were also those least inclined to consider immigrants a threat to employment (28.7 per
cent against 34.3 for Italy as a whole) and most inclined to view immigrants as a resource
for the economy (52.9 per cent against 41.5 per cent for Italy, a difference of more than 10
percentage points). Once again, these figures indicate the existence of ambivalent and
contradictory sentiments among the population of the North East towards recent changes,
with open recognition of the economic benefits brought by immigration together with
strong fears concerning its impact on cultural values and crime. Fear of crime, in fact, has
also been on the increase in this area of Italy. As Sartori (2008:289) indicated, the north
east of Italy in the last decade witnessed a sharp rise in the percentage of families
considering their area of residence at risk of crime, up from 17.3 per cent in 1993 to 28.8
per cent in 2006. The figure was lower than in Italy as a whole, but the level of increase
was much higher, given that nationally during the same period the percentage had risen
only from 31.2 to 32.7 (Sartori 2008:290).
According to Barberis (2005), the wave of foreign immigration into industrial
districts since the 1990s has been “perceived as a problem outside the firms and as a
resource inside the workplaces”, with the result that it “further increases the gap between
local society and local economy” (ibid.:16). Especially in the areas previously dominated
by the Catholic subculture, immigration, in his view, has also led to “defensive
ethnocentrism: here, the entrepreneurial propensity and the ideology of the “hard work” is
coupled with an outstanding social closure toward everything [that] is not local” (ibid.:17).
In the 2006 report by the Fondazione Nord Est, Marini (2006:6) put forward a different,
albeit still worrying perspective on this perceived process of decoupling between the local
economy and society. According to him, “[s]ome of the values upon which north-eastern
society has been able to draw (individuals and firms, work and work ethic, community and
belonging, responsibility and parsimony, religion and tradition) and have formed the
central focus around which it was able to structure its own identity, nowadays show some
perverse effects which do not go well with the actions necessary […] to face the challenges
of internationalization of the markets, globalization, integration of migrants, social
cohesion etc. Even more importantly, in some cases these values risk slowing down the
new phase of transformation or prevent new opportunities from being identified”. Among
the actions he considered necessary for the continuing prosperity of industrial districts in
this area of Italy, Marini cited collaboration and shared planning, openness towards the
outside world, learning and communicating, and a new role for politics.
It seems clear from the above that, while industrial restructuring and the strategy of
internationalization have met with attitudes of resistance and even open aversion among
the local population, the latter’s long-standing values and strong sense of local identity,
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traditionally recognized as an important resource for industrial districts, nowadays have
become an obstacle to their further development. Whereas economy and society used to be
mutually reinforcing and supportive, today their interests and visions appear increasingly
divergent, and this in turn contributes to exacerbating the anxieties and fears felt both by
producers and entrepreneurs and by the residents. However, producers and residents are
only two of the elements that need to be taken into consideration when analyzing industrial
districts today. There is a third social group whose feelings and attitudes are just as
important in understanding recent changes and future developments, and this is the
immigrants.
6. THE ONLY PARTIAL INTEGRATION OF IMMIGRANTS
As has been pointed out (Andall, 2009; Statera, 2008a), various surveys have indicated
that, despite the Veneto being one of the strongholds of the Lega Nord, it is also one of the
regions where immigrants appear to be best integrated. Andall pointed out that this
seeming contradiction was due to a primarily economic understanding of integration,
whereas from a social and cultural point of view immigrants faced explicit discrimination.
In addition, in her view, even in economic terms their degree of integration in the region
was lower than it appeared, given widespread grievances among migrant workers of
discrimination over pay and overtime and the overall weakness of trade unions in the
region’s industrial districts. In a study of the tannery district of Arzignano, Andall (2007)
had discovered that “paternalistic relationships in small firms masked high expectations in
terms of worker productivity” (ibid.:297), particularly in relation to migrant workers, and
concluded that social differentiations, traditionally considered weak in industrial districts,
had greatly widened since their employment in the local industry (ibid.:303).
Similarly, in a survey of the district of Arzignano, Statera (2008b) reported a
situation of ethnic separation, based on interviews with local migrant workers. He
concluded that “the world has arrived to Arzignano but has not mixed”. According to
Barberis (2005), this situation is typical of the north-eastern regions previously dominated
by the Catholic subculture and could have serious repercussions on the future development
of industrial districts, since the resulting labour market segmentation and the lack of social
mobility among migrants are threatening to destroy what used to be the most dynamic traits
of this type of industrial economy.
7. CONCLUSION
According to Anastasia and Corò (2008:19), the north east of Italy is the area with the
highest degree of international openness: here the ratio of imports-exports in relation to
GDP equals 57%, second only to the Lombardy region. This situation testifies to forwardlooking and innovative strategies and attitudes among many local firms. Entrepreneurs, as I
wrote in 2001 (Cento Bull and Gilbert 2001:100), “did not seem prepared to trade off
economic prosperity for a defence of a traditional society and values” and, faced with the
challenges of globalization, appeared to accept “the prospects of a multi-cultural society”.
While this is still largely the case, various surveys have also shown that there are divided
opinions among industrialists themselves concerning both delocalization and immigration,
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due to divergent strategies undertaken by individual firms, since not all have opted or
managed to internationalize, almost intolerable levels of internal and external competition
and persisting fears of long-term economic decline. Indeed, the demise of some districts,
such as the textile district of the Val Seriana in Lombardy, demonstrates that there is a
drastic penalty to pay for choosing to adopt the wrong industrial strategy.
If industrialists themselves show clear signs of anxiety and stress, these are even
more widespread among the wider population. More importantly, while the former by and
large view the recent economic changes as necessary and seem prepared to accept the need
for policies aimed at the integration of immigrants, many other social groups express
contradictory and often irreconcilable opinions, giving the impression of being swamped
by insurmountable problems. Especially with regards to immigration, local residents of
industrial districts appear to be simultaneously aware that immigration constitutes an
important resource for the local economy and opposed to it. Perhaps their attitudes can be
best summed up by Statera’s assertion (2008b), with reference to the experience of a
Ghanaian worker in the leather district of Arzignano, that the town had “inlocalized” only
his hands, while “the person attached to them has remained extraterritorial”. In other
words, immigrants are accepted solely as a labour force, but rejected as far as their culture,
customs, religion and identity are concerned.
At the social level, this xenophobia creates discrimination and exclusion, which
local and national political institutions are unwilling and/or unable to address. At the
political level, as I argued elsewhere (Cento Bull, 2009), it makes residents and parties
prone to what has been defined as the “politics of simulation”, with reference to a politics
which practices “societal self-deception” in order to address people’s growing insecurities.
Such a politics “simulates” being able both to devise and implement policies – such as
expelling all irregular workers from the country or treating immigration as a “temporary”
phenomenon - which are incompatible with economic and social trends, and to reconcile
what are irreconcilable, and therefore deeply stressful, anxieties and fears.
REFERENCES
Anastasia, B. and G. Corò (2008), “Bassa crescita, ancora”, in D. Marini and S. Oliva,
(eds), Nord-Est 2008. Rapporto sulla società e l’economia, Venezia, Marsilio:31-58.
Andall, J. (2009), “La vittoria della Lega: immigrazione e cittadinanza in Veneto”, in G.
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107
COMPARING AND CONTEXTUALIZING INTERPRETATIONS OF
REGIONAL DIFFERENCE: ITALY VS. BELGIUM
Michel Huysseune
Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
1. INTRODUCTION
Like nationalism, political programmes that question the existent institutions and nationstates require discursive justification. The capacity of such justifications to convince
public opinion itself depends on their successful re-articulation of broadly shared
knowledge, opinions and values. The constructivist paradigm of nationalism has focused
on the prominent role of intellectuals in the discursive elaboration of national identities.
The credibility of such elaborations relies on their capacity to propose an articulation of
national specificity in the universal language of the social sciences. As a discipline,
history has played an outstanding role in elaborating narratives of national development,
but other social sciences may equally contribute to the justification of nationalist claims
(Coppieters et al., 2002; Huysseune and Coppieters, 2002).
In the two cases studied here, affirmations of regional identity and critiques of the
central state do find justifications in the social sciences, albeit only in indirect forms. In
Italy, reflexions on regional specificity are traditionally related to studies of southern
Italy. The long-standing intellectual tradition (generally referred to as meridionalismo)
that reflects on the specific problems of the region and the country’s North-South divide
is in fact an original Italian intellectual contribution that has no real parallels in other
European countries, including Belgium (Bevilacqua, 1994:76). Its impact on the Italian
public debate is, however, not always straightforward and frequently research on the
South has been received as a confirmation of existent stereotypes. The numerous social
pathologies present in southern Italy or at least in several parts of it, such as corruption
and organized crime, have certainly facilitated this process. Hegemonic representations of
the region therefore consider that these pathologies exemplify its economic, social and
cultural “backwardness”, notwithstanding the modernization of the South after the
Second World War (cf. Cassano, 2009:42-50). Such representations, combined with
readings of the central state that interpret is as contaminated by the South’s cultural
inadequacy (see e.g. Tullio-Altan, 1986), may indeed create an intellectual framework
that contributes to legitimize the secessionist claim of the Lega Nord (Huysseune, 2006).
109
In Belgium, the elaborations of narratives of regional identity and political
articulations of regional difference have not really been matched by sustained social
science reflection on the issue. The present community-level organization of the social
sciences enhances the institutional separation of the scholarly community: in this context
scholars frequently take subnational identities easily for granted and hence tend to reify
regional entities. Comparisons between regions do take place, but generally in a
politicized context that does not question the reification of these entities, and in which the
terms and the methodology of comparison are under-theorized. The history of Belgium
certainly does not warrant any reading of Wallonia, one of the very first regions in the
world to experience the industrial revolution, as “backward” or “un-modern” and this
rhetoric device is indeed entirely absent from the Belgian debate. As in Italy, however,
the superior performance of the richer region may serve as a justification for separation
from the underperforming one. In recent years, however, scholars have been tackling the
issue in a more reflexive way, parallelling a modest but significant revisionist vein in
public discourse that affirms an interest in Belgium as both a problem and a challenge
(e.g., Buelens et al., 2007).
The different epistemological traditions in Belgium and Italy are, however, also
related to their different location in theory and in the social sciences in general. For
historical reasons, there is a long-standing international interest in Italy and in
interpretations of the country’s particularities, and therefore a surprisingly large amount
of social theory has been elaborated with Italy as a starting-point. Ideological and
identitarian concerns have influenced students of Italy, since the country has a longstanding position as the Other of Anglo-Saxon modernity that dates back to at least the
early 18th century. Although stereotyped visions and “colonial” interpretations of the
country have certainly not been absent even from recent scholarship, foreign interest in
the country has undoubtedly enriched the intellectual debate in Italy and contributed to
give it theoretical profundity. This foreign interest combined with the tradition of
meridionalismo and reflections on Italy’s particularity have given intellectual depth and
sophistication to interpretations of the country’s North-South divide (cf. Mastropaolo,
2009).
Such a tradition does not exist in Belgium. From an international perspective,
Belgium appears as a country with a normal socio-economic development and a
(certainly until recently) stable political system, and hence scholars of all disciplines have
only expressed a limited theoretical interest in explaining its particularities. This
undoubtedly contrasts with the view of many Belgian scholars and a small number of
foreign specialists on Belgium, who tend to emphasize the exceptionality of the country
and seriously question the sustainability of its institutional model (see the discussion in
Peters, 2006). Since the centrifugal dynamics of the federal system are at the heart of
discussions on Belgium’s survival, the lack of sustained theoretical interest in regional
differences within the country surprises. This relative neglect also contrasts with the
important role historical narratives of victimization have played in regionalist
mobilizations on both sides of the language border. These narratives attributed a central
role to the state in the oppression and economic deprivation of their respective
community. The dwindling importance of such narratives (although they certainly have
not disappeared entirely) undoubtedly reflects the growing role of the regions and the
diminished competencies of the federal government. Regional authorities moreover are
sponsoring positive discourses of regional modernity and excellence that tend to
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downplay rhetoric of victimization (although such rhetoric has a tendency to emerge
virulently at moments of interregional controversies). In Italy, discourses of regional
victimization also exist both in the South and in the North, although more marginalized
because of a public culture bent on affirming the unity of the country. The emergence of
the Lega has nevertheless revealed the potential strength of such a discourse, based on a
widely shared common sense interpretation of the state as alien to northern society. The
mainstream answer to the Lega, the “Northern Question” discourse, rejects the Lega’s
racist and ethnocentric language, but as a rule accepts its juxtaposition of a healthy
northern society and an inadequate central state.
In what follows, I outline and compare the various interpretations and
explanations of regional difference students of Belgium and Italy have proposed, and
analyze how such interpretations may be congenial to centrifugal regionalism. In a first
section, I analyze the cultural interpretations of regional difference that in both cases play
a predominant role in contemporary scholarship and in justifications of centrifugal
regionalism. After a critical evaluation of these interpretations, the second section
evaluates structural theories of regional difference. In the conclusion I propose some
alternative elements for interpreting and comparing societies.
2. THE ENDOGENOUS DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM AND CULTURALIST
EXPLANATIONS
Taking into account county-specific dynamics, the scholarly and public debates in
Belgium and Italy display a similar logic. In both cases the predominant issue addressed
in debates on national and subnational specificity concerns regional capacity for
economic development (a vision which presumes a classification of countries and regions
according to their degree of economic development, a classification that implicitly also
makes normative judgements on these territories).1 Globally, such presentations
conceptualize the geographically uneven process of development as “the product of a
differentiated diffusion process from the centre that leaves behind residuals from
preceding eras or meets with pockets of resistance towards the progress and
modernization that capitalism promotes” (Harvey, 2006:72). This conceptualization
proposes an essentially endogenous explanation of success, roots it in specific territories,
and tends to ignore outside factors that may condition societies and their economy.
The self-representation of the richer parts of the countries relies in both cases on
the image of regions ready and able to take up the challenges of economic globalization.
The dominant image the less affluent regions propose is one of territories catching up
with the richer ones, and gradually liberating themselves from the inheritance of the past
that delayed their virtuous development. Dominant discourses embed, however,
economic success in a broader framework, relating it to regional capacity for good
1
Implicitly, this perspective nevertheless also makes assumptions on the quality of
development, as is exemplified in evaluations of southern Italian regions. The illegal
economy prominently present in several of them undoubtedly produces an accumulation
of wealth. The negative evaluation of these regions therefore implies that wealth is not
the only relevant issue: a development model with a strong if not predominant role of
organized crime is from a normative perspective presumed to be unacceptable.
111
governance (presumed to be less strong or altogether lacking in weaker regions) and a
cultural context that supports these assets. Discourses from the less privileged region
once again try to assert their gradual adaptation to these standards of accomplished
modernity. The logic of such framework tends to focus on those societal features of the
underperforming territories that are supposed to explain their presumed inadequacy,
while it assumes that the performing territories are essentially unproblematic. Counterdiscourses problematizing models of modernity and explanations of economic success are
generally only present at the margins of the public and academic debate (for a recent
example in Italy, see Cassano, 2009).
The so-called “New Regionalism” paradigm plays a central role in representations
of successful regions (cf. Keating et al., 2003, see also the contribution of Stijn
Oosterlynck in this volume). It argues that a mobilization of local and regional social and
cultural resources will produce economic development. This paradigm originated in fact
in the 1980s out of Italian and international scholarship on the post-War process of
diffuse industrialization of peripheral northern and central Italy, outside the triangle
Milan-Turin-Genoa where industrialization had originally occurred (see in particular
Piore and Sabel, 1984). This line of research has constantly highlighted how this
development was based on industrial districts embedded in local society that mobilized
local social and cultural resources. Literature tends to represent the industrial districts of
northern Italy as idealtypes of local centres of production inserted in the networks of the
global economy and escaping the territorial and social hierarchy characteristic of the
fordist economy (for an overview, Huysseune, 2006:99-106; for recent literature see the
contribution of Anna Cento Bull in this volume). The importance of the social and
cultural dimensions of this development has resulted in an impressive amount of research
that is interested in the cross-fertilization of economic and social models that is quite
unique. As a direct consequence for this volume, the social sciences are better informed
on the socio-economic particularities of these industrial districts than of most other
regions in Europe, including Flanders.2 Starting from the Italian case, the New
Regionalism paradigm has resulted in a by now well-established research tradition.
Reflections on regional economy have established important variations on the original
Italian model. In the case of Flanders, for example, scholars highlight the important role
of regional authorities as facilitators of economic development (cf. Keating et al., 2003).
The articulation of the relation between economic development and cultural
specificity clearly follows partly different dynamics in the two cases studied. In Flanders,
culture has played an important place in the articulation of regional identity. Historical
narratives that articulate Flemish identity and the victimization of the Flemish nation,
however, have lost their previous prominence. The new focus of Flemish public discourse
on the region’s modernity understands Flemish regional identity as an instrument for
development. It coexists with a vision that differentiates Flanders and the cultural
characteristics of its population from the negative image of the Francophone and
Wallonian Other, with a focus on the work ethic of Flemings. Public discourse also
proposes Flanders as a model of good governance, in contrast with the presumed
weakness of governance, clientelism and corruption in Wallonia. Scholarly research on
2
A curious consequence is that recent representations of northern Italy strongly focus on
these districts, and pay limited attention to other parts of the region or to economic, social
and cultural processes that take place outside this model (Huysseune, 2006:142-143).
112
regional culture, however, has rarely confirmed these dichotomies. If anything, the rare
scholarship devoted to cultural comparisons between Flanders and Wallonia has
concluded that the two regions display strong cultural similarities (e.g., Billiet et al.
2006). Maesschalck and Van de Walle (2006), for example, observe that there is no solid
evidence of any consistent regional cultural difference in attitudes towards corruption
(nor of corruption itself): the data they study mention a more extended public perception
of corruption in Wallonia, but also a more hostile attitude of public opinion towards it.
Discourse on cultural difference has played a more complex role in Italy.
Contrasting with a public discourse that has always highlighted the country’s unity, a
“northern” vision of the country has articulated the opposition between a modern and
entrepreneurial northern culture and a traditional South. The issue of cultural difference
has played an important, albeit controversial role in debates on the country’s North-South
difference and the South’s particularity. The debate overlaps with international
considerations on the differences between modernity and tradition/backwardness, giving
this issue an extra edge. Scholarship on the role of culture in development in northern
Italy needs to be contextualized within this interpretative tradition. Not all of this
scholarship is equally controversial. Historical research on various industrial districts has
highlighted how their emergence resulted from the valorization of previously existent
local social and cultural resources, but such research makes no assumption on the
existence of a presumed typically northern cultural identity (Cento Bull and Corner,
1993; Gaggio, 2007). The temptation to read the weaker development of the South as
resulting from inadequate culture nevertheless exists (see e.g. Macry 1997, and for a
critique Benigno 1997).
Italy is, however, also the scene of the paradigmatic work on the relation between
culture, institutional efficiency and regional development, Robert D. Putnam’s Making
Democracy Work, published in 1993. This seminal but controversial work, based on
extensive research in Italy, highlights the importance of social capital in producing the
civic culture that is a necessary prerequisite both for good governance and for economic
development. The book argues that because social capital is prominently present in
northern regions, absent or much weaker in southern regions, the former reach a much
higher level of governmental efficiency than the latter. Putnam’s book is important for
several reasons. Its conceptualization of social capital has become immensely popular in
social research and has been applied in the most different contexts and with quite
different purposes, including in Belgium. Secondly, the book proposes (in fact in line
with modernization theory) a model of accomplished modernity characterized both by
high economic development and a democratic and civic political culture. Thirdly, it
interprets success and failure in developing social capital in cultural terms, quite similar
to a well-established Italian interpretative tradition critiquing the alleged excessive
individualism of southern Italians. Putnam himself mainly refers to the concept of
“amoral familism” that the American political scientist Edward Banfield (on the basis of
his field research in 1954-1955 in Chiaromonte, Basilicata) had defined as follows:
‘[m]aximize the material, short-run advantage of the nuclear family; assume that all
others will do likewise’ (Banfield, 1967:83). While Banfield was cautious about
generalizing the use of this concept although he did assume it could be relevant for
southern Italy or even Italy as a whole (idem:10), Putnam traces its origins to the
authoritarian past of the South, starting from emperor Frederick II (13th century). He
considers amoral familism as a survival strategy in an authoritarian environment, path
113
dependently reproduced and embedded in society. Northern Italy on the contrary
inherited from its medieval city states traditions of cooperation for the common good.
Putnam’s contribution has been sufficiently flexible to allow the development of a
wide variety of research agendas. Some applications certainly also display the limits of
his approach. His model relating economic development to the presence of social capital,
applied to Belgium to analyze the Flanders-Wallonia economic differential, gives
inconclusive results (see De Rynck, 1998). Marc Jacquemain (2005-2006:151) has raised
a more principled critique. He argues that the lower level of social capital in the old
industrial subregions of Wallonia ought to be interpreted as a consequence of their
economic decline, and that it would be absurd to consider it a cause, since this decline
reflects world-wide industrial transformations. In Italy, Putnam’s framework effectively
played a role in the public debate on the issue in the 1990s, especially since it
corresponded with entrenched stereotypes on southern Italy. Debates on Putnam’s
theoretical framework in Italy have, however, provided an opportunity to question the
ethnocentrism and the methodological bias of culturalist interpretations. Critics of
Putnam (e.g. Lupo, 1993; Sabetti, 1996; Tarrow, 1996) have pointed out how his image
of a South without social capital and incapable of collective action offers a largely
distorted picture of the region that ignores well-embedded forms of cooperation and a
long history of social and political mobilizations.
Students of southern Italy have proposed two relevant methodological critiques of
mainstream representations of the region and its culture. One, around the Italian review
Meridiana, promotes an alternative view of the region that highlights the ineptness of
describing it as backward, since it drastically modernized after the Second World War.
Instead of being “backward”, it is now fully integrated in the developed world. These
scholars are equally concerned to outline how southern Italy has already been undergoing
processes of economic modernization at least since the beginning of the 19th century.
Although acknowledging the persistent problems of the region, they drastically reject
theoretical models that intend to exclude the region from modernity or emphasize its
alleged backwardness, like the one proposed by Putnam (whose historical determinism
they equally counter). More internationally oriented critics from Italy and abroad have
applied Edward Said’s Orientalism paradigm (Said, 1978) to argue that representations of
southern Italy propose an “Orientalism in One Country”, whereby the South becomes the
undeveloped Other of the virtuous North (see the contributions in Schneider, 1998). Both
schools propose relevant critiques of dominant representational models of southern Italy,
without necessarily providing entirely convincing alternatives. The second one is open
for the same critique as Said’s work, namely that it does not provide a method for
alternative representations. Taken to its extreme consequences, this approach suggests
that the issue is essentially one of representation, and hence offers no satisfactory
framework for interpreting the problems southern Italy indeed is confronted with. The
“modernist” paradigm of Meridiana equally does not provide an entirely convincing
framework to understand the problematic features of modernization in the South.
The two alternative readings of the South discussed here nevertheless reveal the
ideological dimension of the New Regionalism vision of culture and society which they
do not really question. New Regionalism promotes a vision of regional excellence that
reflects the predominant paradigm in European public discourse and scholarship that
emphasizes modernity and “normalcy”, ignoring the much broader and heterodox
interpretations of culture proposed in much scholarship in cultural studies. This
114
hegemonic paradigm offers an essentially utilitarian vision of culture as a set of attitudes
and values that supports economic development, promotes system stability and
institutional efficiency. In both cases, public discourse and the social sciences all too
easily idealize economic modernity, as incarnated in the more developed regions. As a
consequence, discussions of the problematic features of modernization remain as a rule
segregated from those of models of economic modernity. In Italy, the problematic social
aspects of the northern development model are often interpreted within the framework of
the Northern Question in which outsiders, in particular the Italian state, are indicated as
the culprits of northern discontent. In Belgium, the discussion on the strength of radicalright parties in Flanders, for example, is essentially confined to sociological debates and
hence does not address the question of whether its emergence may be related to the
Flemish economic model. In both cases, there are good reasons for a further investigation
of the relation between models of economic success and their potential socially
deleterious characteristics. In Italy, some sociologists have outlined the socially
problematic dimensions of the culture of northern Italy and its industrial districts in
particular. This research has drawn attention to the negative consequences of the
instrumentalization of social relations for economic purposes (Bagnasco, 1999), of the
predominance of an individualist culture (Magatti, 1998), and of the socially exclusive
and often xenophobic nature of networks of trust in the industrial districts (see e.g. Cento
Bull, 1996; Sacchetto, 2004). In Flanders, the relation discovered between utilitarian
individualism, distrust of politics and voting for the extreme-right equally outlines a
relation between dominant socio-cultural values and social pathologies (Derks, 2004).
In neither case do we dispose of models that intend to provide a comprehensive
alternative framework for the interpretation of regional culture. In Belgium, recent
Flemish mainly journalistic representations of Wallonia propose reflections on its social
and cultural assets that have been lost in Flanders. Although prone to exaggerated
dichotomies, these contributions may provide the basis of a critical reading of the
pathologies of competitive modernization. In Italy, a small group of southern Italian
intellectuals (clearly influenced by the post-colonial critique of the aberrances of
modernity) has proposed a critique of the utilitarianism of modernity and as a rediscovery
of traditional southern anti-utilitarian values, for them particularly but not only present in
southern Italy (Alcaro, 1999; Cassano, 1996). Rather than a new paradigm for
interpreting the South, these intellectuals intend to provide new instruments for social
change, but they nevertheless also have the merit of drawing attention to and reevaluating those social and cultural features of societies that cannot be inserted in
dominant narratives of modernization and competitive adaptation.3
3
It is equally possible to question the development models of Flanders and northern Italy
from an ecological perspective, especially since they are among the most polluted regions
in Europe. Notwithstanding the omnipresent rhetoric on sustainable development, public
discourse in both countries displays limited interest in the deleterious environmental
features of the productive system in these regions.
115
3. STRUCTURAL EXPLANATIONS OF REGIONAL DIFFERENCE
Discussions on culture are relevant to understand regional differences, but in both cases
these debates tend to stereotype and reify cultural identities, and to develop an essentially
utilitarian vision on them. Cultural explanations also propose an unproblematic relation
between culture and territories and/or ethnic groups (and in fact they tend to avoid any
questions on the nature of this relation). In their present form, they propose small-scale
equivalents of narratives that intend to explain inequality on a global scale by the degree
of successful cultural adaptation to modernity. They thus ignore the structural inequalities
within the global economy and the power relations that have produced them.
Undoubtedly, the mechanisms that engender the global structural inequalities of
the world economy are not very relevant to understand differences in economic
performance within Europe. Scholars like Sidney Tarrow have nevertheless proposed to
study culture in Italy not as the main explanation of regional difference, but as an element
determined by structural constraints. For him, cultural factors “do play a role, but they are
mediated by the structure of constraints and resources that surround the player and shape
his strategy of adaptation: in particular, by the kind of state he encounters” (Tarrow,
1977:142). In the following, I analyze two theoretical models, one focusing on centreperiphery relations, one on the role of the state.
3.1. CENTRE-PERIPHERY
In the 1970s, theories that emphasized the unequal power distribution between centre and
periphery have played an important role in interpretations of regional difference and the
emergence of peripheral nationalism in Europe. In Belgium and Italy, this approach has
not raised much interest in recent years. In both cases, public spokespersons of the poorer
region tend to emphasize their region’s modernity and hence prefer to sidestep the issue
of inequality. Parallel with this evolution, scholars tend to consider the internal
colonialism and dependency perspectives intellectually outdated. While references to
southern Italy’s peripheral location in the past historically did play a role in explaining its
backwardness, presently even Marxists and adherents of World-System Theory do not
analyze southern Italy as a dependent territory, since Italy clearly belongs to the core of
the First World and southern Italians share the privileges of this location (Arrighi and
Piselli, 1987). From a Marxist perspective, John Agnew (1993) has critiqued the coreperiphery metaphor by pointing out the difficulties concerning the definition of
“peripheries”, and the danger of “ascription of causality to spatial categories” (idem:258).
He highlights how this may lead to attribute only a passive or reactive role to territories
defined as peripheral, denying their potential for agency (idem:260).
The concept of periphery nevertheless does merit some attention in interpreting
southern Italy. It has a historical significance, since its past insertion in global trade
networks did follow a pattern of exchange between agricultural and industrial goods with
all the asymmetries this implies. For its present situation, taking into consideration the
location of the region remains relevant, to begin with in geopolitical terms as a region
outside the core of Europe’s economy. Its less advantageous position, together with its
social consequences such as mediocre labour conditions and a lower standard of living,
make southern Italy comparable to other peripheral European regions like northern
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Greece or central Portugal (Rossi, 2004:470). This model of course cannot be applied to
Belgium. The territorial inequalities the post-fordist economic model of just-in-time
production may engender are equally of limited relevance in Belgium, since the Belgian
territory offers in general favourable conditions, because of its location in the economic
core of Europe and the absence of important geographic impediments to development. A
more relevant approach to understand regional underperformance in Belgium would be to
compare the depressed areas in Wallonia with similar ones in Europe, as “internal
peripheries” created by capitalist development (and as such they are exemplar of the
inequalities the economy does engender). Why these areas in Wallonia are among the less
successfully reconverted then still needs to be explained.
3.2. INSTITUTIONAL EXPLANATIONS
Both in Belgium and Italy, institutions (and central authorities in particular) play an
awkward and ambivalent place in debates on regional difference. These debates take
place in a context where the state suffers from a lack of legitimacy. Northern and
southern Italians, Flemings and Walloons, have moreover all developed a narrative in
which the state, allegedly favouring the interests of the other region and/or of an
oligarchic elite, has discriminated them. In the public debate of both countries, the claim
of the richer region(s) to stop financial transfers to the poorer one(s) has moreover
acquired an important place. Beyond the often confusing debates on data concerning such
transfers, this claim clearly proposes a normative paradigm shift that questions the
traditionally upheld solidarity within the nation-state, since it intends to limit this
solidarity to a particular part of the nation. The political importance of such arguments is
not really reflected in scholarship, since Belgian or Italian studies that purports to sustain
the anti-transfer justifications remain relatively scarce (Hannes, 2007; Ridolfi, 2010). In
both countries, overall, scholarly debates on institutions have a tendency to downplay
narratives of victimization and perspectives of discrimination. Scholarship discussing the
central state nevertheless frequently proposes reflections on the territorially differentiated
impact of state policies and also on the performance of subnational authorities.
In recent years, scholars have rarely focused their research on the regionally
and/or ethnically biased role of the central state. In Belgium, the most important and
systematic analysis on this issue dates from 1978 (Quévit, 1978). Quévit’s study analyzes
the role of the central government in the decline of the Wallonian economy within a
narrative of Wallonian victimization. His starting-point is the dominant position of large
holdings and in particular the Société Générale in the Belgian economy. These holdings
characteristically developed a global investment strategy with relatively weak links to
territory. Through the Flemish Movement, a competing Flemish bourgeoisie emerged,
especially after the First World War (around the Vlaams Economisch Verbond and the
Kredietbank). This bourgeoisie consistently defended the territorial interests of Flanders,
and managed to exercise a strong impact on government policies through its relations
with the dominant Christian Democrat party. Wallonia, economically dominated by the
holdings who owned most of its coal and steel industry, lacked an elite with a similar
territorial interest. Confronted with the decline of its traditional economy from the 1950s
on, the region was therefore unable to produce a collective mobilization for economic
growth similar to that of Flanders.
117
Quévit’s work reflects both the indigenous leftist roots of Wallonian regionalism
and the blend of Marxism and regionalism popular in the 1970s and that found its
theoretical expression in the (not necessarily Marxist) internal colonialism paradigm (cf.
Hechter, 1975). It has its equivalent in the writings of Anton Roosens, the most important
progressive Flemish nationalist (himself influenced by Gramsci), who equally denounced
the role of Belgian holdings (Roosens, 1981). In Italy, narratives of southern
victimization (e.g. Zitara, 1976), form a curious blend of pro-Bourbon nostalgia and
Marxist-sounding rhetoric, and even the Lega’s discourse occasionally displays traces of
the influence of leftist regionalism present in its early stages.
By the depth of its analysis that transcends a too overtly parochial partisanship,
Quévit’s work is certainly the most important Belgian example of scholarship on the way
politics of the central state may contribute to the creation and/or preservation of a
regional differential. The demise of such approaches undoubtedly reflects the diminished
importance of both Marxism and the internal colonialism paradigm that sustained this
literature. Quévit himself has recently reiterated his narrative of discrimination of
Wallonia (Quévit, 2010) without, however, its original Marxist framework. The relative
indifference towards such research - Quévit’s book from 1978 is exceptional in still being
frequently quoted, but its approach is rarely discussed and still less applied – implies that
its thesis has never really been systematically evaluated, undoubtedly a lacuna in
interpretations of Belgian history. In the case of southern Italy, however, the limited
intellectual impact of discourses of victimization, undoubtedly related to the prevalent
ideological climate, also reflects the critical tradition of meridionalismo, strongly
concerned with analyzing and denouncing the abusive practices of southern elites.
Interestingly enough, some recent scholarship in southern Italy, theoretically much more
mainstream than that from previous periods (e.g. Viesti, 2003), does draw renewed
attention to the deleterious effects on the South of recent policies of the central
government (and outlines that the strength of the Lega and the prominence the Northern
Question has acquired have led to a policy focus on the North, detrimental to the South).
In the case of Belgium, the diminished role of the federal government also
explains why, besides the specific issue of transfers, analyses of the differentiated
regional impact of its policies do not play an important role in the present intellectual
debate. In Italy, on the contrary there exists a long-standing tradition of political
discussions on the state’s territorially differentiated policies that has also influenced the
academic debate. Issues of contention are the modalities of the incorporation of the South
(more precisely the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) in Italy in 1860-1861, the protectionist
policies of the 1890s that promoted the industrial take-off of northern Italy, and the
debate on the intervento straordinario after the Second Wold War to modernize the
South. Although debates on the first two issues still continue, most interest concentrates
on the evaluation of post-War policies. Carlo Trigilia’s Sviluppo senza autonomia
(Development Without Autonomy) published in 1992, has provided the framework for
the presently dominant interpretation. The book, while acknowledging the positive effects
of the intervention, focuses on its perverse effects. Its “assisted” development from
above, often determined by political considerations, has been unable to generate an
autonomous process of growth. He observes the contrast between the development poles
subjected to the intervention and confronted with stagnation, with those parts of the South
not involved in those policies and their sometimes superior capacities for independent
development. Published in the early 1990s, the book certainly (perhaps against the
118
intention of the author) consolidated a view that the South’s problem was state
intervention, and hence that this intervention should be downscaled in favour of the
natural working of the market (although an alternative paradigm on local development
based on pooling and stimulating local entrepreneurial and cultural resources equally
plays a role in the debate on southern development policies).
The less acknowledged research of Linda Weiss (1988) reveals one weakness in
the interpretative framework derived from Trigilia’s study. Like Trigilia, Weiss envisions
differentiated regional development as the outcome of state policies. She outlines how the
Italian government’s intervention in the South was geared more towards providing
infrastructure and supporting large-scale industry. Support for the northern economy
concerned much more financial subsidies towards artisans and self-employed people.
These policies of extensive economic support to small enterprises, much more generous
than in other European countries, tend to be obliterated in entrepreneur-focused narratives
of northern development. Her reading suggests that the different regional economic
models are the outcome of differentiated policies (Weiss 1988, especially chap. 4:55-80),
although these policies themselves reflected existent perceptions of regional difference.
Evaluations of regional authorities are a third category of studies on the role of
institutions. Standards of good governance form one of the key elements of public
discourse in success regions, frequently contrasted with the real or presumed incapacity
of less successful ones to reach these standards. Certainly in public discourse, differences
in performance are frequently related to cultural difference, and hence once again propose
the culturalist paradigm discussed above. Performance of regional authorities is obviously
a key element of Putnam’s Making Democracy Work. Critics of Putnam never really
question his negative evaluation of southern regional governments; they only reject his
culturalist explanation. Recent scholarship on Belgium is equally interested in the
analysis and comparison of regional governments. The process of federalization has
undoubtedly led to policy divergence between regional authorities. Scholars are for the
moment cautious in their explanations of this divergence: rather than referring to
culturalist explanations they tend to emphasize the difference in political opportunity
structures (e.g., De Rynck and Dezeure, 2006).
Evaluations of regional authorities also concern their role in stimulating economic
development. In Belgium, public discourse frequently highlights the presumed negative
role of the dominant Socialist Party in Wallonia in the region’s development. The
hegemonic position of socialists in Wallonia rendered a collective mobilization for
economic development more difficult than in Flanders, since the party had weaker links
with the entrepreneurial class than the dominant Flemish party, the Christian democrats
(Quévit, 1978). A comparison with Italy, where socialists and later the communist party
have played an important role in stimulating industrial development in localities and
regions they controlled (see e.g. Gaggio 2007), suggests that this argument is not entirely
satisfactory. However, Linda Weiss (1988) has pointed out that in its promotion of
policies that strongly favoured small enterprises the Italian state was quite exceptional in
Europe (the only comparison she makes concerns Japan). The absence of such policies in
Wallonia is hence not exceptional (see also the contribution of Oosterlynck in this
volume).
Both in Wallonia and southern Italy, scholarship and public discourse frequently
relate underachievement to clientelist practices. Up to which point there exists a causal
relation between clientelism and economic underachievement is never systematically
119
theorized (if anything, the opposite causality might be more relevant). In the case of
Wallonia, the fact that the socialist party (both presumed to be the main culprit of
clientelism and for regional underdevelopment) did not participate in regional (and
national) governments for most of the 1980s, economically a crucial phase for its failed
reconversion, certainly problematizes interpretations that blame this party for this failure.
In Italy, scholars have argued that in some southern regions (Abruzzo and Basilicata) the
practice of so-called “virtuous clientelism” has played an important role in mobilizing
resources for development (Piattoni, 1998). Although such research may underestimate
the deleterious effects of clientelism on society, it nevertheless has the merit of
questioning the assumption that opposes clientelism to economic growth.4
An overview of the role of institutions in both cases seems to raise questions
rather than provide answers. Institutions certainly play a relevant role, but it is less easy
to interpret this role. The narratives that argue that the central state has systematically
discriminated particular regions are clearly unilateral. It nevertheless seems fair to
concede that central governments have in both cases played a role in producing policies
with a territorially differentiated outcome. The history and the logic of these
differentiated policies certainly deserve further reflection. In Belgium, they are related to
international development trends (the demise of the sectors of the first industrialization,
coal and steel, causing decline in Wallonia, the emergence of new industrial sectors and
the service economy favouring Flanders). In Italy, the differentiation is rather related to
the different interaction between the central state and local and regional elites, the
economic elite of northern industrialists (relatively independent of the state but
nevertheless acting in strong symbiosis with it), and southern elites whose power is much
more related to their insertion in political circuits.
4. ELEMENTS FOR AN ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATION
Structural explanations offer important correctives to cultural ones. They do not
necessarily efface them, but they certainly allow understanding culture in context. Rather
than perceiving culture as the cause of structures, they suggest that the opposite relation
may be the more relevant one. Structural explanations do not, however, provide an
entirely convincing explanation of regional difference, and do not sufficiently address the
issue of agency within the less privileged regions.
Southern Italy offers the best perspective for going beyond internal (cultural) and
external (structural) explanations of regional particularity, starting from the persistent
4
In Belgium, clientelism is also located in the past, as a practice of the pillarized political
system gradually reformed in recent years (but this discourse also assumes that these
reforms have been more successful in Flanders than in Wallonia). Until the 1980s,
oppositional political rhetoric in Flanders frequently critiqued the regionally predominant
position of the Christian democrat party in similar terms as present critiques of the
socialist party in Wallonia. The Flemish economic take-off in the 1950s and 1960s
certainly took place in a context where clientelist practices were extensively present. In
Italy, many scholars (e.g. Tarrow, 1977) have pointed out that clientelist practices are
systemic, related to the set-up of the Italian state, even when they tend to be stronger in
the South (for an overview of this debate, see Huysseune, 2006:107-117).
120
presence of irresponsible and abusive elites in the region. The issue has been a core
concern of many interventions in the debate on the Southern Question and from the
beginning, contributors to this debate have been divided between those who interpreted
this irresponsibility as an expression of a southern mentality or culture, and those who
rather emphasized the institutional context and the power mechanisms (including at the
national level) that determined the actions of these elites. For sure, the perpetuation of
this problem raises a serious interpretative challenge. The optimistic vision that related it
to the region’s backwardness and expressed the belief that modernization would bring its
disappearance (together with that of organized crime) has been drastically disproved,
since these elites and organized crime have on the contrary displayed their capacity to
adapt to modernization
The scholarship on the South in the 1990s that correctly revised images of
backwardness sometimes itself proposed a too optimistic reading of the region (see e.g.
Cersomino and Donzelli, 1996). Paradoxically, although many of these scholars had
expressed their hostility towards Putnam, their vision on the role of the newly emerging
southern civil society that would produce new responsible elites and good governance
seems a copy of Putnam’s model highlighting the role of social capital (ibid.). Some ten
years later, the limits of change and the persistence of an abusive political class are all too
visible. At this point, Judith Chubb’s earlier (1982) analysis of southern clientelism
appears as more compelling. She already argued that it was not a transitional phase
towards modernity (as social scientists before her tended to assume) but a selfperpetuating and self-reproducing regime.
Southern Italy thus raises the question of how the persistent presence of abusive
elites in the region may be explained. Research on the origins of this system has related it
to the specific conditions of the South’s transition from feudalism to capitalism in the
early 19th century. John Davis has conceptualized this transition as the Great
Transformation, highlighting how the process of social disaggregation southern Italy
underwent during that period had many elements in common with the social changes that
accompanied industrialization in Great Britain, described by Karl Polanyi (Davis,
1998:211). In a context of political and social instability (much more than in northern
Italy in the same period), traditional elites in the South reorganized their hegemonic
political and social position, including by developing unstable and conflictual alliances
with newly emerging social groups that in some regions were the backbone of organized
crime. This power system was consolidated and institutionalized in the period after Italian
Unification, since it allowed the central government to control the newly annexed regions
of the South. There is also a consensus on how this power system was perpetuated after
1945, in the context of the Cold War and the perceived threat of communism.
The southern Italian power system undoubtedly has endogenous roots, in local
social and political conflicts. It certainly cannot, however, be separated from the Italian
state as a whole and its central government in particular, or from northern economic
interests. From the 19th century on, southern Italian intellectuals like Napoleone
Colajanni have pointed out how the power system in southern Italy was instrumental for
the preservation of the power of the country’s dominant northern elite. The recent waste
crisis in the southern region of Campania is a good example of the perpetuation of this
pattern. Media frequently represent this crisis according to traditional stereotypes that
highlight southern cultural ineptness and the involvement of the Camorra. A more indepth analysis rather reveals a territorial division of labour whereby industrialists from
121
more developed regions in cooperation with organized crime use the territory of less
developed ones as convenient abusive outlets for their waste (with the tacit support of the
central government, and against the active opposition of at least part of the local
population).
The particular nature of the power system in southern Italy and its interaction with
the Italian state goes a long way in explaining regional particularities. It nevertheless also
raises another question, why it has never successfully been challenged. This issue may be
related to a more general theoretical problem, concerning the role of social and political
mobilizations (including of course ethnic mobilizations) in moulding society. The
excellent research on social movements produced in both countries contrasts with a more
general tendency to downplay their (past and present) role in politics and their impact on
society. In both countries, contemporary hegemonic public discourse articulates a vision
that idealizes essentially conflict-less societies (or more precisely one where social
conflicts are ignored or re-interpreted as ethnic or cultural conflicts, the only ones that are
readily acknowledged). It reflects current social science practice that frequently outlines a
model of networked governance that abstracts away the issue of power relations and the
unequal access to power, and in fact essentially envisions politics as the elite game of
policy-making, in which the role of social mobilizations is marginalized (Hadjimichalis
and Hudson, 2006). Hegemonic Flemish public discourse, for example, expresses the
historically predominant political tradition of the region, Christian democracy, contrasted
with the Walloons prone to (especially working-class and union) mobilization. Such
vision seems oblivious of the importance of political mobilization for Flemish
emancipation, and more broadly for the establishment of democracy in Belgium (the pre
World-War I strikes for universal suffrage). Hegemonic public discourse in Italy
cultivates an even stronger dislike of mobilizations and has pronounced a damnatio
memoria on the protest cycle of the 1960s and 1970s and (more controversially) on the
Resistance, a clear attempt to exorcise social and political conflicts by focusing only on
their excesses.
The problematic place social sciences attribute to social movements is well
illustrated once again by Putnam’s Making Democracy Work. The volume gives a
positive value to such movements, since it highlights the role of political grass-roots
mobilizations (the socialist, communist and Christian democrat traditions in northern and
central Italy) as a crucial element in the consolidation of northern Italian civic culture and
equally deplores the in fact largely imaginary absence of such movements in the South.
Putnam, however, locates the role of such mobilizations in the past, as a historically
constitutive element of a civil society. A mature civil society transcends these conflicts
and politics become pacified with its civic elite in charge. That such a narrative of
maturation of an essentially conflict-less society may be problematic is certainly clear in
the case of southern Italy. The substantial failure of elite-driven reforms in the 1990s
(sustained by a mainly middle-class civil society) would rather confirm Chubb’s
prediction (1982) that sustained popular grassroots mobilizations are the only instrument
that could seriously challenge existent power structures in southern Italy. Equally
problematic, however, is Putnam’s image of a mature post-conflict society in northern
Italy, since the very emergence of the Lega and its conflictual relation with the central
state but also with “deviant” groups within the North problematizes it.
These examples suggest us to look more carefully to the role of social conflicts
and social mobilization in the regions under scrutiny. Past social mobilizations and
122
conflicts have played an important role in determining social identities in both countries.
Knowledge of this history is certainly important for understanding societies and as
Santino (2000; 2006) argues for Sicily, ignorance of this history may lead to serious
misinterpretations of these societies. He particularly relates the predominant role of
predatory elites in the region and the lack of opposition to them to the defeat of social
movements contesting their power. More in general, the strong political identities and
political subcultures (both national and regional) characteristically present in Italy in
Belgium (although recently rather weakened) definitely are sediments of historical
processes of political mobilizations, and hence confirm their importance.
In both countries, the contemporary affirmation of centrifugal regionalism may
indeed be related to cycles of social conflicts and their sedimentation in political cultures.
In northern Italy, its emergence followed the demise of the nation-wide cycle of protest
that contested Italy’s elites between 1967 and 1980. It equally coincided with the
weakening of the historically rooted Christian democrat and communist political
identities and subcultures, a process that has its parallel in Belgium, where during the
same period these identities and subcultures as well as the pillars that sustained them
gradually declined or underwent a process of political disaffiliation. Historians and
political scientists in Belgium have pointed out how its political life has traditionally been
determined by three cleavages: clerical-anticlerical, capital-labour and FlemishFrancophones. Since the 1960s, after the important mobilizations in the 1950s from
Catholics and anticlericals (on the place of Catholic schools in the educational system)
and the 1960-1961 General Strike, the latter cleavage has become politically predominant
and the other cleavages now are frequently interpreted in “ethnic” terms (cf. Huyse,
1981). The present predominant version of Flemish identity (anti-Wallonian but also
tendentially anti-socialist) may hence be read as an intentional exorcization or at least
domestication of political traditions that equally exist in Flanders.5
This excursion historicizes justifications of centrifugal regionalism and reveals
that the linkage between cultural identity and economic performance it proposes makes
abstraction from political and social history, and the cultural and political plurality that
indeed characterizes regions. It also questions the implicit assumption of centrifugal
regionalism that the state of development of their region essentially expresses
endogenous virtues and is not conditioned by its history and (national and international)
power relations. From this perspective, affirmations of centrifugal regionalism should be
read as symptoms of the political, social and cultural tensions and contradictions of
societies mobilized in the competition for economic excellence. These cases may be read
as the reduction of politics to economic interest (Magatti, 1998:175-176), but the
politicization of these interests in a secessionist stance reveals how such a reduction is
ultimately impossible. Taking into account that the findings concerning Belgium and
Italy and in particular the strong economic dimension of their justifications are probably
in many aspects case-specific, they nevertheless suggest that the occurrence of centrifugal
regionalism in seemingly post-ideological and pacified societies expresses the new shape
of tension-lines and conflicts within and between societies, rather than the end of them.
5
Recent representations of social conflicts in Belgium tend to ethnicize them, describing
in particular the general strike of 1960-1961 as an essentially Wallonian event.
Differences in political traditions in the two regions thus risk to be reified and only
represented in opposition to each other, downplaying dissident minorities in each region.
123
Centrifugal regionalism in Europe should hence be envisioned as a constitutive element
of the reconfiguration of the democratic political space in the context of globalization and
economic and political integration.
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HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PECULIAR PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON
IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION IN FLANDERS?
Patrick Loobuyck (*) and Dirk Jacobs (°)
(*) University of Antwerp, Centre Pieter Gillis
(°) Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institut de Sociologie
1. SEVERAL KINDS OF FLEMISH NATIONALISM
There are good reasons to conclude that the extreme rightwing and nationalist party
Vlaams Blok (since November 2004 Vlaams Belang – from here VB) advocates a sort of
rigid ethnic nationalism (Martiniello, 1995:136; Hossay, 1996). This conservative,
ethnocentric wing of Flemish nationalism is a legacy of what happened during the Second
World War. The “Flemish collaboration” with the Nazis marked a dramatic change for
the Flemish movement. Decades later, in its political rhetoric the VB steered increasingly
towards overt (cultural neo-)racism and xenophobia, so it was not surprising that in
November 2004 the party was condemned by the Court of Cassation for racism. In fact,
that is the reason why Vlaams Blok changed in Vlaams Belang. Since this judgement the
party focuses more on anti-Islamic stances.
However, apart from the VB, there are also other forms of nationalism in Flanders
which are less extreme, more open, democratic and progressive. Flemish nationalism was
in the beginning essentially a movement for Flemish cultural and linguistic emancipation
in the context of a state dominated by the Francophones. Flemish nationalists were
involved in a struggle for cultural autonomy and for the affirmation of a denied Flemish
identity (Farrell and van Langenhove, 2005; Murphy, 1988; Zolberg, 1974). With the
independence of Belgium in 1830, French was established as the state’s only official
language. While the constitution of 1831 guaranteed linguistic liberty, the Flemings were
denied any cultural and linguistic rights for a long time. Speaking French was the key for
upward mobility and a part of the upper class in Flanders became necessarily
Francophone (McRae, 1986:276-85). Several series of language laws (adopted in the late
19th century, the 1930s and the 1960s) gave the Flemish people adequate language rights
and transformed the Flemish society into a unilingual Dutch-speaking community. Since
the language law of 1963 Belgium is divided into four language areas: unilingually
Dutch-speaking (Flanders), unilingually French-speaking (Wallonia) and unilingually
German speaking areas, and the bilingual area of Brussels (although some municipalities
in the unilingual regions retain limited bilingual facilities). The increasing influence of
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the Francophones (so-called verfransing) in these areas and in Brussels itself is nowadays
almost the only linguistic problem on the agenda of the Flemish nationalists. Currently,
Flemish nationalism is much more involved in discussions about political autonomy,
state-reform and territorial questions. So while Flemish nationalism grew from linguistic
roots, gradually the language grievances reached out to broader aspects of political and
social life (Hooghe, 1993).
This kind of Flemish nationalism is a form of “cultural” nationalism. It defines the
nation in terms of a common culture and language, and the aim of the nationalist
movement was to protect the survival of that culture. This sort of concern is also the basis
of the Catalan, Scottish and Québécois nationalist movements. However, this nationalism
is open to diversity and immigration and has nothing to do with xenophobia. Many
authors equate “ethnic” nationalism with “cultural” nationalism, but this equation is
incorrect. Flanders, Québec and Catalonia “accept immigrants as full members of the
nation, as long as they learn the language and history of the society. They define
membership in terms of participation in a common culture, open to all, rather than on
grounds of ethnic descent” (Kymlicka, 2001:243-244).
This kind of democratic cultural nationalism is to be found now in almost all the
Flemish political parties (there are no Belgium-wide parties anymore). All the Flemish
parties, and thus not only the explicit nationalist parties, are in favour of more political
autonomy and use arguments from a nationalist discourse to protect the Flemish identity,
language, territory and culture especially against the Francophones. One of the problems
for the more progressive Flemish nationalists is that, since the Second World War until
today, the negative, ethnocentric connotations unjustly overshadow the whole Flemish
movement. Unlike Québécois nationalism (cf. Kymlicka, 2001: chapter 15), Flemish
cultural nationalism is indeed not associated with progressive multiculturalism. However,
if we look at the Flemish minority policy and the way how Flanders copes with ethnic
diversity, the resemblances with Québec are greater than one should expect. Of course,
there are illiberal, xenophobic strands within the Flemish nationalist movement (the same
is true in the Scottish, Catalan and Québécois movements), but there is also a very
powerful liberal, democratic strand which is committed to the creation of a modern and
multicultural society of free and equal citizens.
2. POLITICS OF AUTONOMY AND POLITICS OF IDENTITY
Nationalism is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that takes different forms in
different societies, areas and periods. Craig Calhoun (2007:86) suggests treating
nationalism as a “discursive formation”: rather than to search for an essentialist definition
of nationalism, it seems better to see nationalism in terms of (Wittgensteinian) family
resemblances.
Two elements play an important role in defining nationalism (Béland, 2005:678).
The first is an identity derived from common markers such as language, religion, history,
or ethnic origins. Indeed, nationalism insists on a form of identity politics. This identity
element also accounts for the more emotional aspects of many discussions about
nationalism (Smith, 1998:146-199). The second element is a politics of autonomy or
independence. Nationalism seeks to gain or maintain for a group – the nation – a measure
of self-government. Therefore, nationalism’s existence is inseparable from the existence
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of political power and from the power struggles in which its claims are grounded. Both
elements usually define an “enemy” or “other” that is said to threaten the cultural identity
and/or the political autonomy of the group. In Flanders this enemy has multiple forms: in
some discussions the immigrants and especially the Muslims are the enemy, in other
discussions all the Francophones, especially those living in Brussels and its periphery, are
evil, in another debate, the enemy tag is applied to the Belgian central government system
and the royal house as one of the most important symbols of Belgium. The “hard core”
Flemish nationalists fight all these enemies at the same time.
As we will see, both elements of nationalism (identity and autonomy) have their
influence on the integration policy and discourse in Flanders. After several state reforms
the Flemish community has much greater autonomy concerning integration policy and the
struggle for matters of identity and language was an important element in the
development of the Flemish approach on migrant policy. Moreover, both elements are
intertwined with each other. Thanks to the political autonomy of Flanders, the Flemish
community could develop a minority policy with special attention to language and
identity.
3. THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IN BELGIUM
Federalism and state reform have resulted in a situation whereby migration policy is
mainly a competence of the Belgian government and migrant policy is mainly a local
competence of the Communities, Regions and cities. Education, integration, language,
housing, and matters pertaining to the religion of migrants, are all competences handled
at the level of the Regions and/or Communities. This division of labour is also clear when
we look at the list of ministers on the different political levels: on the national Belgian
level there is since 2008 a coordinating minister of migration, while in the Flemish
governments (2004-9, 2009-14) there is a minister of so-called “civic integration”
(inburgering) who has the central and final responsibility for the entire minority policy.
4. MIGRATION AND INTEGRATION POLICY OF THE FEDERAL BELGIAN
GOVERNMENT
4.1. DISCUSSIONS ON IMMIGRATION POLICIES
Entry and removal of migrants is still within the jurisdiction of the Belgian government.
Until 2008 the federal ministry of the interior had many responsibilities concerning
asylum seekers, regularization, visa-policy, family and marriage migration and the
control of illegal migration. In March 2008, however, Belgium has for the first time
instituted a coordinating ministry of migration. Since July 2009, this portfolio has been
handled by the prime minister himself. However, social integration and housing of
asylum seekers is still within the jurisdiction of the federal minister of social integration,
labour policy (inclusive economic migration) is a competence of the federal minister of
labour and the governments of regional levels are responsible for the implementation of
the labour policy and the issue of work permits for foreigners. Also, the federal ministry
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of the interior still has some responsibilities concerning immigration and security. In
2007, the government launched a new immigration law with a mind to reform the asylum
seeking procedure and more conditions for family migration (e.g. the age limit for family
reunion with a non-EU husband or partner increased to 21). In 2008-9, the discussion
concerning immigration on the Belgian level was dominated by the “hot” issue of
regularization of undocumented migrants. Despite many actions of the sans-papiers and
the pressure of many different societal organizations, there was for more than two years
no consensus for a governmental initiative (as promised in the autumn of 2007).
Ostensibly, the gap between the French and Flemish political parties in the Belgian
government was too deep. The Flemish politicians were much more restrictive on this
issue than most of their French speaking colleagues. Finally, in July 2009 there was an
agreement for a new regularization campaign between September 15 and December 15
2009 for undocumented people who have been fore more than 5 years in Belgium, and
are socially integrated in the Belgian society. The Belgian government policy statement
of 2008 also shows the intention to facilitate economic immigration. This was mainly
asked for by the Flemish parties in the government. In 2008-9, there was also some
discussion about the housing of asylum seekers since there was a lack of free places in
the relief centres.
4.2. NATIONALITY LEGISLATION
Beside anti-discrimination and anti-racism policies, another tool for integration still in the
hands of the Belgian government is the nationality legislation. The nationality legislation
has been considered as an essential instrument to stimulate integration and (political)
participation. The Belgian Nationality Law from 1984 changed several times (1991,
1995, 1999 and 2000) and the idea of ius soli determines Belgian citizenship now.
Between 1985 and 2008 more than 600,000 foreign residents changed their nationality
and became Belgian citizens.
Since 2000 Belgium has one of the most liberal and open legislations in the world.
Every child born on Belgian soil from a parent also born in the territory (“third generation
immigrants”) automatically acquires Belgian nationality. There is, however, a
“residence” condition for the parent(s): he or she has to have been living in Belgium for
at least five years of the ten years preceding the birth of the child. Furthermore, “second
generation immigrants”, born on Belgian soil, can fairly easily become citizens. Indeed,
the Belgian nationality can be acquired for a child born on Belgian soil by simple
declaration made by the parent(s) on behalf of the child before the age of 12. There is
also an optional procedure for second generation migrants and certain groups of first
generation migrants. Adults born in Belgium or who have been living in Belgium for
seven years and have a permanent resident status can simply opt for the Belgian
nationality. Access to citizenship through option is a simple right, that is, if one has not
been convicted for severe crimes and is not being considered as a threat to national
security.
In addition, Belgium has a system of discretionary naturalization. Everyone
residing legally in Belgium since three years (and two years for refugees) can request
naturalization. In contrast to the option procedure, naturalization is a favour, not a right.
This is also expressed by the fact that parliament decides on naturalization.
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Hidden behind an apparent uniform vision on the federal level, there are important
divergences between Flemish and Francophones with regard to their vision on
citizenship. During the parliamentary debates on the liberalization of the nationality
legislation in the nineties, these differences have particularly come to the fore.
Paradoxically, there is currently no language requirement to obtain citizenship in a
country which is obsessed by the issue of language use. The reason is simple albeit
somewhat peculiar: although most politicians agreed language knowledge is a normal
condition for obtaining citizenship, no agreement could be found on how to impose a
language requirement for nationality acquisition. Moreover, a majority of Flemish
politicians wanted to maintain a number of more “subjective” criteria (as the degree of
cultural integration or the loyalty to the receiving society) and language related criteria
(such as knowledge of Dutch when living on Flemish territory) for the acquisition of
citizenship. A majority of Francophone politicians, on the other hand, preferred to retain
only “objective” criteria such as the length of legal stay on the territory. Furthermore, if a
language requirement were to be upheld, knowledge of one of the national languages was
deemed to be sufficient, no matter where in the country one would live. Since the Flemish
and Francophones could not reach an agreement on modalities, there was since 2000
simply no language or integration condition withheld for obtaining Belgian nationality.
In the campaign for the federal elections in 2007, it seemed that many political
parties – especially the Flemish parties – agreed that this legislation must change to give
more “dignity” (sic) to the Belgian nationality. In October 2009 the government reached
an agreement that naturalization is only possible after five years of legal residence in
Belgium. Moreover naturalization is no longer possible without “evidence of
integration”. This evidence also implies knowledge of one of the official national
languages in Belgium and this knowledge must be affirmed by the (French-, German- or
Flemish-speaking) Community.
4.3. ENFRANCHISEMENT OF FOREIGN RESIDENTS
Belgian politicians have been remarkably reluctant in enfranchising foreign residents.
(Jacobs, 1999; 2000) They argue that voting rights for foreign residents are superfluous,
since it is easy to acquire Belgian nationality and all the political rights associated with it.
It took until early 1999 before Belgium finally enfranchised EU-citizens. The Belgian
government has even been urged to make legislation by a judgment of the European
Court of Justice in 1998. The delay was the result of a (sub-)nationalist electoral
rationality: the Flemish politicians were afraid that the enfranchisement of EU citizens in
Brussels and its periphery would result in electoral advantage for the Francophone
political parties.
For non-EU citizens the electoral law has been modified in 2004, following heated
political debates. The opposition was organized by the Flemish political parties
(especially by the right-liberals VLD and by VB), while there existed a consensus about
local enfranchisement between most of the Francophone parties. This language cleavage
has two reasons, apart from the fact that VB as an anti-immigrant party is logically
against enfranchisement (Jacobs and Swyngedouw, 2002). Firstly, Flemish democratic
parties were more reluctant than their Francophone colleagues because they feared a
white backlash and growing success of extreme right. Secondly, the Flemish parties were
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afraid that the foreign vote would immediately benefit French speaking politicians thus
weakening the electoral position of Flemish politicians in Brussels and its periphery, a
reason already invoked when talking about EU-nationals. On October 8, 2006 third
country nationals could participate in local elections for the first time, albeit only as
voters and not as candidates. The participation is voluntary, while for Belgians voting is
compulsory.
4.4. TWO CULTURES
The debates on immigration and integration on the Belgian national level, make clear that
Flanders has another public and political opinion than the French speaking part of
Belgium. In Wallonia and Brussels there is less reluctance against regularization of
undocumented migrants. Differing from their Flemish colleagues, Francophone
politicians were not against voting rights for foreign residents and the revision of the
open nationality law is not a priority. The presence of nationalist parties on the Flemish
side can explain this difference. Especially the most radical and popular nationalist
Flemish political formation VB always argues without nuance against regularization,
voting rights, etc. Moreover most of the democratic Flemish parties are afraid of growing
success of the extreme right if they are too positive and open on migration issues. But the
direct and indirect influence of extreme right and nationalist parties is not the only thing.
Almost all the Flemish parties use “nationalist” arguments (concerning autonomy and
identity) to defend their position. They want more economic migration because the
Flemish economy needs a more open labour market; they also want that naturalization
requires language acquisition because language is an important part of the Flemish
identity; and finally they were against the enfranchisement of foreigners because foreign
votes could be dangerous, giving more power to Frenchspeaking politicians.
5. THE FLEMISH INTEGRATION POLICY
5.1. THE FLEMISH MINORITY POLICY
Since the state reform of 1980, the Flemish Community has jurisdiction over the
reception and integration of migrants. The Flemish government has developed its own
policy plans and the first policy note on migrant policy was accepted by the Flemish
government in March 1989. The Flemish minority policy is a mix of categorical (1980s)
and inclusive (1990s) elements. In April 2009, the Flemish parliament accepted a new
decree on integration. The key concepts are: emancipation and equal participation of
certain target groups, accessibility of regular services, and living together in diversity. It
is striking that the decree has not only the equal participation and emancipation of the
immigrant population as subject, but also the whole society. One of the main aims for the
near future is to promote the coexistence in diversity by all citizens and to further the
intercultural competence of political and social institutions. As per this policy document,
living together in a diversified society is every citizen’s responsibility.
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5.2. CIVIC INTEGRATION OF NEWCOMERS (INBURGERING) IN FLANDERS
One of the central components of the Flemish policy was the integration of newcomers.
Since the end of the 1990s, there were various local experiments and projects related to
reception policy for newcomers. However, only in February 2003 was the official
legislation about the so-called citizenship trajectories (inburgeringstrajecten) officially
accepted.
The citizenship trajectories contain Dutch as a second language, lessons of
introduction to Flemish/Belgian society and democratic values, and some help for access
to the labour market. The idea of “citizenization” (inburgering) is copied from the
Netherlands and has provoked a lot of discussion. Most of the time, the political
discussion was about the compulsory character of the trajectories. Right-liberals,
nationalists and conservatives stressed the importance of “obligation” and “sanctions”,
while more progressive politicians said that obligation is only fair when there is sufficient
availability of tutoring and the waiting lists for lessons have been eliminated. The idea of
inburgering is also controversial in the migrant communities, because people usually
discuss the policy in terms of “assimilation” and “obligations”, while it could actually be
legitimized in terms of qualification, empowerment, emancipation and capabilities.
Although much has been said about the obligation, it is worth mentioning that the
target group is larger than the group that is obliged to undertake tuition. From April 2004
onwards, the trajectories have become compulsory in Flanders for asylum seekers whose
application has been declared admissible and for non-EU newcomers who marry a nonEU citizen. On the basis of international regulations and European legislation, citizens of
the European Economic Area (EEA), their spouses, their children aged under 21 and their
parents are not compelled, but entitled, to go through a civic integration process.
However, they have a right to participate in these programmes. Newcomers aged 65 and
older or newcomers who are seriously ill or disabled are also exempt from the
requirement. Also, all the newcomers who register in one of the 19 Brussels
municipalities are not subject to this obligation and for them, the course is optional.
In 2006 and 2008, the Flemish parliament has adopted amendments to the decree
to broaden the priority groups. Since 2007 the ministers of recognized religions from
non-EU countries (especially imams) are obliged to participate in a citizenship trajectory
and also non-EU partners of established and naturalized Belgians of non-EU origin
belong to the target group with obligations. Before 2007, a citizenship trajectory was
optional for a Turkish man who married a naturalized Turkish woman, while it is now
compulsory. The decree of 2006 also mentions that established non-EU origin
immigrants insufficiently mastering the Dutch language can be obliged, even when
holding Belgian nationality, when they are unemployed, have children at school, or want
to make use of social housing facilities. And since September 2008, non-compliance can
lead to fines ranging from €50 to €5,000. There is, for the moment, only an obligation to
participate to citizenship trajectories, not to achieve a certain knowledge level, but the
Flemish decree of 2006 does foresee that at some point actual tests could be introduced.
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5.3. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FLANDERS AND FRANCOPHONE
BELGIUM
The political autonomy of the Regions and Communities makes it possible that their
minority policy is in line with their history and sensitivities. It is not by accident that the
Francophone approach of immigrant integration is inspired by the French model, just as it
is not by accident that in Flanders there is a lot of emphasis on language competence and
the importance of ethnic cultural identities – two issues which have had a prominent role
in the history of the Flemish nationalist movement. In the overarching policy framework
in Flanders, the recognition of ethno-cultural groups and group-based multicultural
policies play an important role. The Flemish approach is based on the belief that
preservation and development of the cultural heritage and identity can stimulate
emancipation and participation within the host society. The Francophone governments, in
contrast, have been unwilling to recognize ethic-cultural groups as specific entities in its
policies. The cultural and ethnic dimensions of immigration are almost neglected in the
Francophone academic and political debates in Belgium. Any approach in terms of
ethnicity and culture, and thus specific policies for immigrants are almost automatically
rejected, because they are perceived as an implicit form of racism (Martiniello,
1995:143).
There are many examples that can illustrate the difference between the Flemish
and Francophone policies. Whereas headscarves were actively discouraged or forbidden
in the Francophone education system, the Flemish schools have taken a much more
pragmatic attitude (Verlot, 2001). However, this Flemish attitude changed dramatically
after 2000 and resulted on a September 11, 2009 ban on all religious symbols in all public
schools of the Flemish Community. Contrary to Wallonia, in Flanders and in Brussels
there have been experiments with education in the language and culture of the
immigrants. The Flemish policy has also had a clear preference for supporting the selforganization of migrants, and consultation of immigrant organization representatives has
become good practice in several political domains, while this is much less the case on the
Francophone side. In Wallonia, there is no specific policy for addressing the problems of
immigrants and neither are these formulated in cultural terms but in the more general
terms of economic marginalization, social ex/inclusion and citizenship (Martiniello,
1995:142-143; Martiniello et al., 2007). Typical for the Flemish approach is the special
programme for newcomers and the language courses, compulsory for a part of the target
group. This kind of reception policy is absent in Wallonia. The policy statement of the
French speaking Community of 2009 shows the intention to organize some reception
policies, but this is still in the initial stages of planning.
It is not clear if the different models and policies of integration in the Flemish and
the Frenchspeaking Community have also different results e.g. for equal opportunities in
education or on the labour market. Allochthonous citizens are overrepresented in
unemployment statistics and the facts and figures of the PISA reports show that
allochthonous students obtain equally bad results in both Communities (Jacobs et al.,
2009). In terms of social (in)equality, there is still a lot of work to do in all the different
Regions and Communities in Belgium.
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5.4. THE FLEMISH COMBINATION MODEL
In general, we could say that the Flemish government has clearly adopted a target
approach towards immigrants, while the Francophone government has deliberately opted
not to develop any categorical policy towards immigrant groups - at least not officially. It
has been argued that while the Francophone policy toward immigrants leaned towards the
French republican model, Flanders’ approach was for a long time inspired by the AngloSaxon and (former) Dutch multicultural model (Rea, 2000; Verlot, 2001). These
distinctions, however, are too generalized and also outdated. The different Regions and
Communities in Belgium use elements of both models. Today Flanders, like the
Netherlands (cf. Entzinger, 2003), has a hybrid policy towards immigrant incorporation,
combining both more assimilationist and more multiculturalist stances. Although
Flanders has moderate assimilationist ambitions with its citizenship trajectories, the
overall picture still fairly justifies labelling Flemish policy as oriented towards
multiculturalism (Jacobs, 2004).
The Flemish government sees no contradiction in combining a (more
multicultural) targeted ethnic minorities policy with a (more assimilationist) programme
for citizenship trajectories (Jacobs and Rea, 2007:268). To become a new Flemish citizen,
immigrants must learn the language and agree with the “Flemish” values of pluralism,
democracy, the rule of law, freedom, equality, solidarity, respect and citizenship (cf.
Bossuyt, 2006). Cultural distinctiveness, in particular language, serves as a relatively
straightforward criterion for defining the Flemish national community, that is, for
specifying who should be included and excluded. However, the Flemish government
keeps insisting that its civic integration policy is open to diversity and is not aimed at
“assimilation”:
We want to achieve social cohesion in which everyone’s particularity and
cultural identity can prosper, but in which the current values, norms and
rules of our democratic state and the rule of law, remain the corner stone
of Flemish society. The Flemish government judges it to be important that
allochtonous Flemings do not give up their cultural and religious values,
but rather integrate these as added values to Flemish society. Respect of
diversity is one of the fundamental values of Flemish society: just like the
equality of all humans, the separation of church and state and the freedom
of expression. (Flemish government, 2004:5)
The division of tasks related to immigration as sketched above offers some
opportunities, but it has also some disadvantages and incoherencies (Loobuyck and
Jacobs, 2006; 2009). The federal system gives Flanders the opportunity to develop its
own approach, but this approach conflicts not only with the approach of other
Communities, but also with the approach undertaken at the Belgian national level. The
latter is especially clear when we confront the present nationality legislation with the
Flemish idea of “citizenization” (inburgering). The idea behind the citizenship
trajectories is that people can only reach full membership of the Flemish society on the
condition that they learn the language and learn about the organization and some basic
values of the guest society. The idea behind the present nationality legislation is
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completely different. Foreigners can easily get the Belgian nationality (some of them
after two or three years), without any language test or requirement of integration. Many
politicians are aware of this contradiction between the Belgian and Flemish approach and
there is now a political consensus that the nationalization legislation needs to be
reviewed.
6. THE INFLUENCE OF FLEMISH NATIONALISM ON MIGRATION AND
INTEGRATION POLICIES
Sub-state nationalism can affect migrant policy making in two specific ways: by
reshaping the policy agenda at both the state and the sub-state levels and by reinforcing
regional political autonomy. These two phenomena are often related, but it is possible to
distinguish them analytically (cf. Béland, 2005:681-682).
6.1. NATIONALISM AS AGENDA SETTER
First, there is the influence of nationalist parties on the political agenda. The concept of
political agenda setting refers to that cluster of issues considered as the “pressing
problems of the moment”. The term agenda points to “the list of subjects or problems to
which governmental officials, and people outside of government closely associated with
those officials, are paying some serious attention to at any given time”. Consequently,
agenda setting is the process that narrows the “set of conceivable subjects to the set that
actually becomes the focus of attention” (Kingdon, 1995:3-4).
We can say that in Belgium the discussion on integration and immigration was not
on the agenda until the end of the 1980s. It is clear that the extreme nationalist party VB
is responsible for a reshaping of the policy agenda on this issue and had a function as
agenda setter. The VB has played an important role in the politicization of immigrant and
ethnic issues in Belgium (Martiniello, 1995:141). It was only after the electoral success of
this party that the debate about an integration policy emerged.
Like most other extreme-right parties in Europe, the ideological core of VB is
formed by nationalism, xenophobia, welfare chauvinism and “law and order”. (Mudde,
2000:177) The real core business of the party is Flemish nationalism and separatism, but
gradually, the VB gave more space to the struggle against immigration and
multiculturalism. In the eyes of many people VB is a one-issue party because its
nationalism and anti-migrant stance are not separable. Nationalism, according to the VB,
concerns not only the defence of the Flemish community of language, customs and
historical tradition, but also the defence of an ethnically pure Flemish State. “How can a
party resist the Francification of Brussels without resisting its Moroccanization?”, asked
party leader Filip Dewinter (Hossay, 1996: 354).
The role of this extreme nationalist party is two-fold. On the one hand it puts
immigration issues on the political agenda, again and again. In every campaign for
elections and in every meeting and programme of the party migration and its (negative)
consequences are important topics. Consequently, because of the electoral success of this
party, it was not possible to keep these themes from the political agenda. Moreover, some
136
of the ideas defended by the VB and some parts of their anti-immigrant discourse are also
penetrating the discourse of traditional parties.
On the other hand, the presence of this xenophobic nationalist party is also the
reason why other politicians shun the public debate about immigration and integration.
They don’t want to communicate and to debate these issues in an open way because they
are afraid to lose voters to the extreme-right party. Every discussion of these issues was
perceived as grist to the mill of conservative populists and extreme-right political
formations. Again it is the presence of the extreme nationalist party who decides
(indirectly) how other political parties think and communicate (or not) about this theme.
But, as we have seen, apart from the VB, there are also other forms of nationalism
in Flanders which are less extremist, more democratic and more open on the issues of
immigration and integration. Until 2001 the most explicit nationalist democratic party
was the Volksunie (after 2001: N-VA and Spirit) and we must say that this nationalist
party had a function of agenda setter, especially in the debate of civic integration in
Flanders. They supported the idea of encouraging the integration of immigrants through
language. Together with the Flemish liberals (VLD) they argued several times during the
1990s in favour of a compelling policy of citizenization with compulsory language
education. And in a city (Bilzen) where the nationalist party Volksunie delivered the
mayor, they organized already compulsory civic integration trajectories since 1998 - long
before there was a coherent legal framework to do it.
Of course, all this does not mean that nationalist forces have full control over the
integration agenda but rather that they can successfully pressure regional and national
policy makers to address specific issues that are essential to them. Moreover nationalist
forces are not only agenda setters, they stipulate also in what kind of terms and concepts
these issues can be discussed.
6.2. NATIONALISM AS A MOVEMENT TOWARDS MORE AUTONOMY
A second related point is that nationalist parties and mobilization can strengthen the
legislative and administrative autonomy of territorial entities. This is what happened in
Belgium. The Belgian process of state reform was clearly inspired by the nationalist idea
to get more political autonomy for the Regions and Communities, also concerning
integration of newcomers and migrants. The argumentation for more institutional and
political autonomy was nevertheless not always framed in terms of pure nationalism,
there were also arguments of efficiency and good governance. After all, there are a lot of
elements in the integration policy (like language, education, employment) which might be
better served with local governance, so subsidiarity and regionalization was “inherently
logical” here.
If the (autonomy) logic of nationalism proceeds, we could expect that also claims
for more autonomy concerning immigration policy arise. However, at the moment,
besides the radical nationalist party of VB, only the Flemish nationalist formation N-VA
had this autonomy claim in its programme. There were already some particular, not
binding initiatives (like conferences and papers) to explore the possibilities and the
advantages of more autonomy in migration policy - especially concerning additional
economic migration, family migration and migration based on special ties. However,
most of the parties still agree that, for the moment, a genuine transfer of competencies
137
about immigration towards local governments seems both impossible and undesirable. Of
course the Flemish political parties insist on consultation and good communication
between the Communities, Regions, Belgium and the EU because they want to avoid
overarching immigration regulations that conflict with sub-state policy objectives. The
local government and parties want at least to be a partner in the (national and
international) dialogue about immigration policy.
7. CONCLUSION
Without the notion of Flemish nationalism it would be impossible to understand the
peculiar public and political discourse on immigration and integration in Flanders. There
is not only the undeniable influence of the extreme-right nationalist party VB, since
almost all the Flemish parties make use of nationalist elements, arguments and reflections
in the debate on immigration and integration issues
However, the relationship between Flemish nationalism and the Flemish approach
to newcomers and migrants is Janus-faced. On the one side the Flemish history of
nationalism and the struggle for autonomy, language rights and cultural emancipation, are
used to accept that newcomers are bound to their own language, culture, etc. It supports
the idea of “emancipation without loss of cultural identity”. On the other hand the
Flemish history of nationalism is used as an argument for assimilation and against
multiculturalism. The languages, cultures and religions of the newcomers are conceived
as a (new) threat for the Flemish culture. As the Belgian anthropologist Eugeen Roosens
(1994:269) notes, “natives, who closely associate language, territory, and culture, view it
as somewhat ironic that after winning their long battle against the Walloons, they are now
in danger of forfeiting their cultural rights to foreigners on their own soil”.
However, the conclusion that the Flanders is unlikely to adopt the perspective of
multiculturalism because of their long struggle for linguistic rights and cultural autonomy
is not correct. Here, the distinction between the Flemish and Walloon-approach to
diversity and integration is instructive. The idea of ethnic-minorities and group-based
multicultural policies is clearly much more present in Flemish policy documents than is
the case in Wallonia. One could say that, through structural homology, the Flemish elite
now do not want to impose on its ethnic minorities what it had lived itself as a formerly
discriminated group. At the same time there is a strong language policy and for many
newcomers the citizenization trajectories have become compulsory. As we have seen, the
Flemish government sees no contradiction in combining a more multicultural with a more
assimilationist approach. It sees no contradiction in combining the idea of obligatory
civic integration with the explicit acceptance of cultural differences and the formation
and support of ethnic communities and associations. In essence, the Flemish situation can
be qualified as being one of “inegalitarian multiculturalism”: the cultural identity of
minorities is important, but the Flemish culture always had to take precedence (cf.
Martiniello, 1997). Perhaps, this combination is most characteristic for the Flemish
discourse on immigration and integration.
138
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140
XENOPHOBIA OR DEMOCRATIC DIFFERENTIATION? A NEW PATH OF
SEPARATION AND DISCIPLINE FOR MIGRANT WORKERS IN ITALY
Devi Sacchetto
Università di Padova, Dipartimento di sociologia
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper focuses on the social relations between Italian and foreign workers in northern
Italy, particularly in industrial district areas. Starting from an analysis of social relations
in the workplace and in the public space of immigrants and natives, the paper will show
how racist and xenophobic campaigns promoted by politically-controlled institutions and
adopted by local politicians, are central to control migrant workers and to deprive them of
voice. At the same time we note an advancing integration of migrants in a subaltern way.
The rapid restructuring process of the labour market during 1997-2009 in Italy has
been followed by more institutional regulations of the public places where migrants
appear conspicuous in comparison with local natives. The insecurity linked to their jobs
and to their legal position induces immigrants to behave as individual economic actors
seeking their own self-interest. Political parties have tackled the issue of migrant workers
in different ways. While some of them, such as the Northern League party, have
gradually taken openly xenophobic positions, other, among them both right and left-wing
parties, prefer a democratic form of differentiation. The xenophobic positions are
obsessively announced and reiterated with much rhetoric, a sign of their difficulties in
gaining the favour of their constituencies in these times.
Despite a broad spectrum of discriminations perpetrated by Italians against
migrant workers, attempts to reconstruct some solidarity have arisen in order to remove
barriers between Italians and migrants. Will these efforts be able to overcome the panoply
of forms of discrimination in the workplace and in the public sphere? This is the
challenge of our future.
2. THE LONG SHADOW OF ITALIAN RACISM
In January 1954 Snia Viscosa, a leading Italian company producing artificial fibres with
headquarters in Turin, sent a blueprint to its personnel at Torviscosa (Udine). These
employees had been recruited by Saiccor and were to be sent to build some industrial
141
plants in South Africa. The approximately 350 Italian workers who moved to South
Africa could well appreciate Snia Viscosa’s peculiar public relations:
It is necessary first to maintain a clear distinction between individuals of
White Race and of Coloured Races [...] The White Race is rightly regarded
as the superior race and it is the one that leads the country’s management
and creates jobs and prosperity [... ] With your behaviour at all times you
should prove your superiority [...] You should learn as soon as possible to
command the Negroes so that they serve you at work (cit. in Scrazzolo,
2000).
In the 1950s in Italy forms of racism were quite explicit, although there was
hardly any immigration to the country.1 The permanence of a racist discourse was not
only a legacy of the Fascist period (1925-1945). In fact, the liberal governments and
Italian culture gave an important contribution to the construction of European racist
ideology since the last decades of the nineteenth century, when Italian colonial expansion
in its early stage was on the rise. From 1880 until 1941 Italian colonialism was no less
barbaric than others, in spite of the fact that the domestic rhetoric presented an image of
“the good Italian” (Bidussa, 1994). The final result of this rhetoric was to make racism
acceptable both in the colonies and at home.2 On the other hand, Italian colonial
expansion did not reduce Italian emigration abroad.
Indeed, just in the 1880s, when Italian colonial expansion began in the Horn of
Africa, a mass migration from Italy to the Americas took place, as hard economic
conditions prevailed among the landless population in Italy. Italian migrants moved first
to the Americas (1876-1914), and to other European countries in the interwar years
(1920-1939). Relatively few Italians settled in colonies, in spite of official propaganda to
emigrate to the lands of the Fascist Empire, particularly to Libya. After the 1939-1945
war Italian migrants went to some European countries (mostly France, Germany and
Switzerland). These experiences have seldom suggested Italian people forms of solidarity
in favour of immigrants who arrive in Italy today; the rhetoric of hard work and sacrifice
of Italians abroad has led public opinion to expect immigrants to behave as mere labourpower to be used at will.
As it has been noted, some analogies with the current presence of foreigners can
be traced in the long history of the presence of Muslim slaves in Italy between late
Middle Ages and the early decades of the nineteenth century. Despised as infidels, feared
as criminals, but also popular and in demand for domestic services, slaves improved their
circumstances in the eighteenth and nineteenth century (Bono, 1999). Perhaps it is not
just a coincidence that the city of Caserta where the latest presence in Bourbon Southern
Italy of “slaves” was registered in 1851 (ibid.:363), is also the place where the first racist
assassination took place in recent years. Jerry Essan Masslo, a South-African worker and
political refugee escaped from Apartheid to Italy, was murdered in 1989 in Villa Literno,
1
Nevertheless, in the 1950s and 1960s racism in north-western Italy was directed against
immigrants from north-eastern Italy and even more against immigrants from southern
Italy that moved to Turin and Milan (see Alasia and Montaldi, 1960).
2
On the Italian colonies, see the works by Del Boca (particularly Del Boca, 1992).
142
near Caserta. Italy was shocked and an immediate protest march in Rome drew more than
half a million people.
Immigration to Italy went through a long incubation phase (1975-1990), when
early groups of immigrants were entering the country in relatively small numbers. The
country was becoming a land of settlement, although as a second choice. It was no longer
just a country of transit to other European countries. Thus immigrants began to settle and
be employed in domestic work, in low-paid personal care, in agriculture and in small
factories, often without any form of registration. They joined the labour force at the end
of a decade (1968-1978) of strong working class conflicts, especially in large factories.
This conflict had forced employers to pay greater attention to the composition of the
workforce and to the location of their plants3. In the eighties a progressive miniaturization
of the production structure began, with factories moved to rural areas, while the Italian
labour market became more segmented and collective bargaining was increasingly under
attack (Blim, 1990). The new organization of labour processes could be flexible and
decentralized so that it could be based on the enlargement of the recruitment pool through
the hiring of both Italian women and of male and female immigrants.
In 1991 there were about a million migrants in Italy.4 Their number increased in
the nineties, and reached about 2 million in 2001.5 In the last eight years the ranks of
foreigners have expanded exponentially: at the beginning of 2009, in Italy there were
about 4.3 million foreigners (7% of the total population). More than half of them are
clustered in four regions of northern Italy: Lombardy (23.3%), Veneto (11.7%), Emilia
Romagna (10.8%), Piedmont (9%) (Caritas/Migrantes 2009). Along with a significant
amount of migrants who have settled in major urban centers, the dispersion of immigrants
in smaller centers is significant: in 2001 more than 50% lived in municipalities with
fewer than 30,000 people (Caritas/Migrantes, 2004:74). A characteristic of immigration
to Italy is the presence of a high number of nationalities: besides Romanians (20.5% of
total), Albanians (11.3%) and Moroccans (10.4%) there are fourteen nationalities, each of
them counting more than 60,000 individuals.
3. ITALIAN DISTRICTS AND LABOUR MIGRANTS
During the 1980s some areas of northern Italy have been described as industrial districts
(Piore and Sabel, 1987) or, better, areas where small and medium-sized enterprises
produce for export with an extensive use of manufacturing labour. In 1990s these
industrial districts began to recruit, regularly or irregularly, labour migrants coming from
a large number of countries with very different migratory histories and employment
experiences (Andall, 2007:286). The increasing integration into the regular labour
market, particularly within the industrial districts, improved their working conditions,
3
As Beverly Silver (2003) notes, the attention of entrepreneurs towards the location of
the factory and the composition of the workforce are an important element for
profitability.
4
These are estimates. The number recorded by the Census of 1991 was 350 thousand
foreigners (Istat, 2004).
5
In this case too the figures are resulting from estimates. The Census of 2001 recorded
about 1.3 million foreigners (Istat, 2004; Caritas/Migrantes, 2004).
143
after the first years of prevailingly informal activities. At the beginning of their working
experience in Italy the vast majority of foreign workers was employed as unskilled
workforce, irrespective of their educational qualifications and skills, while more recently
a small fraction of them has become recognized as skilled personnel; usually these are
migrants coming from Eastern Europe who can find better jobs than those coming from
African and Asian countries. In the first decade of the 21st century industrial districts
have undergone drastic transformations. Close and informal relations typical of the
districts have been developed abroad, thus exporting socio-economic models. At the
same time in the industrial districts in Italy only relatively few entrepreneurs have been
able to survive and many have folded up. The surviving industrial districts have
undergone a process of tertiarization resulting in a smaller industrial production and in a
larger quantity of managerial personnel coordinating production at home and abroad.
In industrial districts of northern Italy forms of collaboration among entrepreneurs
based on informal relations have emerged. According to economist Giacomo Becattini
these forms of collaboration tend to strengthen the commitment of single entrepreneurs to
the industrial district they belong to (Becattini, 1998:36). At the same time in these
districts a low level of unionization, the ascendancy of informal bargaining and a
widespread discrimination against migrant workers have been noted. Migrants perform
those activities in which wage levels, and in general working conditions, are worse, and
which Italians avoid when possible, sometimes in complicity with their employers so that
Italian are relieved from heavy duties (Allasino et al., 2004). The recruitment of foreign
workers for heavy and hazardous tasks allows the vertical mobility of local workers;
consequently these will earn more, with significant spill-overs in the ossification of social
order. In some industrial districts of northern Italy the employment of migrants has
allowed employers to maintain a low average technological level, while avoiding
shutdowns or relocation. At the same time, a rigid separation of good jobs for natives and
bad jobs for migrants in the absence of any seniority rule could become a form of job
segregation. The “differential treatment” to which immigrants are subjected allows the
preferential treatment of native workers (Ambrosini, 2003:32).
The increasing separation of tasks within factories has led to accommodation
involving a permanent differentiation between local and foreign labour. Natives have
increasingly turned into groups of control and discipline by imposing patterns of
behaviour on working migrants, although here and there underground collective
arrangements between natives and migrants are enforced to lower the pace of work
(Perrotta, 2007). In general command is white. People in leading positions are almost
exclusively white Italians or white immigrants from Eastern Europe. In fact hierarchy and
racism seem to be two categories that move together.
The diffusion in rural areas of an important fraction of the Italian manufacturing
system (the so-called industrial districts), has coincided with the recruitment of migrant
workers in isolated places. In 2005 in Italy there were about 4.4 million business
enterprises in the industry and service sectors, with 4.8 million local units and 16.8
million people employed for an average size of 3.8 employees per business (compared
with 6.6 of the average EU-15): “firms with fewer than 10 employees are about 4.2
million (94.9 percent) and employ around 7.8 million people (46.9 percent), while those
with at least 250 employees are 3,435 (just 0.1 percent of the total) and employ around
3.3 million people (almost 20 percent of the total)” (Istat 2008:60-62).
144
The explosion of types of legal labour contracts that occurred in Italy starting in
1997 provides a wide choice of arrangements on how to buy labour. In industrial districts,
as elsewhere, short time labour contracts involve both Italians and immigrants, although
the latter are overrepresented. The proliferation of various types of labour contracts has
expanded employment without stimulating economic growth: in the decade 1997-2007,
Italy suffered a certain economic stagnation and a weak export growth, while having “a
higher growth in the level of employment than the European average” (Istat, 2008:55). A
significant part of this growth is to be ascribed to employment without a collective
contract and to temporary jobs.
Work under discriminating conditions results in major splits and divisions. The
restructuring of firms and the gradual appearance of sub-contracts can easily segment the
labour market, while making union control on working conditions more difficult if not
impossible. In industrial districts of northern Italy the decline in labour solidarity has
been slowed down by social ties, family and community relations that provide good
networks to find jobs and to discipline people; for entrepreneurs this system is a valuable
aid in the preliminary selection of the workforce and in the general control over it.
Paternalism in small and medium factories of northern and central industrial districts has
strengthened community and family relationships with its despotic styles (Blim, 1990;
Harrison, 1994). Moreover, in rural areas working relations are tightly intertwined with
social relationships. Consequently, in most cases unions and collective bargaining have
no chance, as class differentiation between small entrepreneurs and “their” workers
appears to be tenuous.
The reorganization of the production structure in recent years reshaped these
patterns of behaviour and of life perspectives. Social differentiation, for example, occurs
extensively even in the industrial districts of northern Italy, while the process of
relocation, often to Eastern Europe, can undermine employers’ loyalties to “their”
companies. Employers are increasingly losing interest in revitalizing the relationship of
trust and consensus with the workers and the identification with a territory in Italy, even
if they force a strategic competition between natives and "foreigners", the latter being
supposedly responsible for any social or economic disruption.
For a long time and up to the eve of the current economic crisis beginning in
2007, Italian workers and entrepreneurs kept repeating that “immigrants do those jobs
that Italians do not want to”. In fact, entrepreneurs have continued to exercise the power
of choice in widening their labour pools, according to a combination of characteristics of
labour, levels of wage and technology. Usually the technologically-advanced machines
are reserved to Italian workers, while migrants have to work with materials, equipment
and machinery that are rather rudimentary and often hazardous. But the current economic
crisis is forcing a return, at least in part, of natives to tasks from which they had thought
they would be free for ever.
Stereotyping in the labour market is a practice supported by the employers and
reinforced by social networks “integrating” immigrants. Ethnic specialization means
unrecognized skills and low social mobility; these are aspects that often affect also the
second generation of migrants, showing how, according to Goffman (1963), the tribal
stigmas of race, nation and religion are still operating. We should probably add economic
stigma to Goffman’s list. This kind of arrangements is irreconcilable with the real idea of
“integration”, a vague idea that policy makers and employers have freely adopted as an
empty slogan in their public statements.
145
4. THE PRETENCE AND VULGARITY OF ETHNIC COHESION
The experiences of migrant workers in Italy differs depending on where they live (in the
northern, central or southern parts of the country), on the kind of sector they are
employed in (agriculture, industry or service)6, and on the dimensions of the employing
enterprise. Migrant people in recent years are objects of a special legislation (the socalled Bossi-Fini, Law No 189 of 2002) that, as in other European countries, rigidly
makes residence permits conditional on regular jobs. This legislation has forced migrants
to undertake any type of regular work in order to appear a migrant in good standing. This
move puts a lot of pressure on migrants, and such pressure is very high in times of
economic crisis. They accept employment in cooperatives where they can obtain a longterm contract and therefore a two year’s residence permit. Cooperative jobs in Italy
means often low wages and bad working conditions. Moreover residence permits are
given through a strongly discretionary process, and cooperatives are often driven by
profiteers.
In the last 30 years many migrants entered Italy with tourist visas and later they
found themselves as undocumented foreigner after their visas had expired. A fraction of
them had to pay substantial sums of money to get access to “migrant amnesties” (in 1990,
1995, 1998, 2002), a politically hot issue, and also a main venue of episodes of
corruption. A migrant had to pay between €1,000 and €3,000 to his/her employer, and the
latter pay a small part of that money to the state in order to regularize his/her employee.
In Italian society the regular presence of the migrants depends on work under a
legal contract and on the authorization issued by the local police.7 In particular, for
migrants who have lived for a few years in Italy, their employment contract with a family
for personal care, or with an employer in a factory has become a prerequisite to prevent
their falling into irregularity. The so-called Bossi-Fini Law has produced a sharp division
between legal and illegal migrants, thus encouraging a caste system in the labour market
(Raimondi and Ricciardi, 2008). The production of irregularity by the Italian law is a
long-term trend (Melossi, 1989:37) that provides further segmentation of the employment
systems, or, to use a fashionable euphemism, “a flexible labour market”.
The natives expect migrants to insert themselves where Italian society needs them.
This perception has caused an increase in aggressiveness by local people trying to defend
their social and economic positions. Moreover, even among migrants there is a degree of
segmentation, so that the newcomers or those less familiar with an approved and deferent
performance of their tasks are condemned to hazardous jobs.
The basic question that immigration has put to Italian public opinion seems to be
whether migrants are here to stay. Their permanence provokes intolerance, as migrants
who have been living in Italy for a long time are more aware of their rights, and usually
show a certain ability to bargain and a lower propensity to accept mistreatment. The more
hazardous are the tasks, the more likely it is that other migrants will come: the high
6
Migrants are often excluded from the public sector where access is reserved to workers
with Italian citizenship.
7
The huge delay in the delivery of the renewal of residence permits in some cities has
ranged between 6 and 12 months, a delay aiming to prevent migrants from leaving Italy.
146
turnover in so-called three D (dirty, difficult and dangerous) jobs is evidence that they
refuse disadvantaged jobs in the long run.8
In the last two decades (1990-2009) in Italy a new division of labour has emerged
with significant gender differences: about one million migrant women are employed in
personal and domestic service for two and half millions Italian families (Catanzaro and
Colombo, 2009). The gradual privatization of health care has opened opportunities for
migrant women and transformed families into employers.9 The cost of personal care for
the elderly has been largely left to families, and families have recruited migrant women
to whom low wages are paid. However usually women migrants from Africa and from
some Asian countries are largely excluded from domestic work because of skin colour
discrimination, while Eastern European women are preferred. On the other hand, male
workers are found in manufacturing, construction and agriculture sectors, and are often
employed by temporary employment agencies and cooperatives. This fate is not absolute
and migrant workers themselves have tried to avoid these jobs that lower skills rather
than enriching them.
A fierce stereotyping by Italians prevents the recognition of a common destiny as
workers. It is obvious that in such a situation the isolation, the difficulty to find places
and people with which to rebuild a collective self-help, is a central element towards
bearable working conditions. Racism is growing in isolation. In spite of a popular belief,
racism is not aimed solely against migrants, but also against whoever seems to express
some degree of diversity. In May 2008 a leaflet posted to the dashboard of a factory in
the Veneto Region announced:
Veneto Region – Hunting Calendar 2007-2008. The Veneto Region
communicates the opening of the hunting season (all year) for the
following migratory game: Romanians, Albanians, Kosovars, the Taliban,
Afghans, and extra-EU people in general. From this moment the hunting
of communists is suspended as they have joined the endangered species,
while there is the possibility of hunting them in areas such as “case del
popolo” (homes of the people), coop [supermarket cooperatives], social
[youth] centers. In this case, given the tough skin of the above game, the
use of weapons such as guns of all kinds (possibly smooth-bore) to more
than five shots, precision rifles and large calibre guns is allowed. In
presence of numerous flocks, it is possible to use hand grenades,
howitzers, automatic machine guns and poisonous gas. You can hunt day
and night, without time limits. The use of night vision, nets, traps, search
and attack dogs, such as pitbull, rottweiller is tolerated. The use of “live”
decoys is allowed. There is no daily limit to the number of animals to be
killed. We recommend the culling of young leaders towards faster
extinction of races. For each thousand animals culled a travel prize of a
week will be awarded to the whole family. It is kindly offered by the
Austrian Minister Jörg Haider. On reaching the number of two thousand
8
The job turnover rates of migrants are still fairly high. For example, in Piedmont, they
are twice as high as the job turnover rates for Italians (Luciano et al., 2007:139).
9
This is why the current Italian legislation provides easier criteria for regular migration
to the domestic workers living under the same roof as their employer 24 hours per day.
147
animals slaughtered, the conferred honorary citizenship of Austria will be
granted.10
The strong and continuous political propaganda for ethnic cohesion and against
foreigners is perhaps a revealing sign of the difficulty of maintaining these fictitious
divisions. The rupture of these separations and the construction of a “common” field
seem to be still possible, thanks to the work of trade unions and of a large number of
association defending migrants rights. Migrants join trade unions, although they use them
more for services than for the union’s debatable capacity to improve their working
conditions. In early 2008 there were 814 thousand migrants as members of Italian trade
unions, representing some 30% of migrant employees (2.7 million) (Caritas/Migrantes,
2008).
The 1st of March 2010 a strike for the rights of labour migrants took place in Italy,
as in France. Groups of migrants and Italians, in particular in northern Italy (Milan,
Brescia, Bologna, Padua) and in some large cities (Rome and Naples) participated to the
strike, but major unions did not declare a strike at the national level so people took part to
it only on an individual basis. The strike has highlighted the difficulties of the Italian
labour movement to overcome the divisions between different nationalities, but also
revealed the emergence of a movement for equality in the workplace and in society.
5. FORMS OF SEPARATIONS AND SIGNS OF A NEW SOLIDARITY
The forms of social differentiation between natives and migrants in society are wideranging. This differentiation may be avoided in daily work, but usually not outside of
workplaces. Industrial districts in northern Italy are usually located in the countryside
where towns are small, often under 10-15 thousand inhabitants, and where separation
between Italians and migrants is clearly marked in public spaces. Here the atmosphere is
one of loneliness and inability to get any form of organization. Individual solutions
prevail also because of the lack of collective action and of public spaces of debate. In
these small towns where people gather at bars, squares, streets, parks, a sharp separation
prevails, which is fed by the use of dialect and a sense of closed community and
protective personal contacts, although one can notice some small groups of people
spending their time with migrants and supporting their views. In fact, in the past two
decades non-profit associations and unions have helped overcoming some forms of
discrimination against immigrants. These groups of activists manned by native and
foreign people are trying to overcome discriminating legislation and racist patterns of
behaviour.
In northern towns the natives feel a sense of abandonment. Political decisionmaking and political representation seem far away. The Northern League, which has built
its success in these areas, has exploited every opportunity to divide natives from
migrants, and feed the separation into ghettos. Its presence in the territory, combined with
its rhetoric, makes it more concrete and understandable according to many ordinary
10
See Anonymous (2008b); a few months later Giancarlo Gentilini, deputy mayor of
Treviso, stated that it is necessary to sink ships full of illegal immigrants (Anonymous,
2008c).
148
people. Central at this point is the myth of one’s own turf. Consequently identity takes a
hue of racism: "Masters at home", "Fiscal Federalism", "We are sending all of them
[foreigners] back". In general the League’s ideological influence is deep. Each clan is a
small state in itself, and no attention is paid to alternative opinions. The discrimination
against foreigners has generated social and economic divisions that have guaranteed the
regimentation of Italian society. Consequently tensions between immigrants and Italians
have multiplied in recent years. They are fed not only by right-wing racist propaganda,
but also by those progressive groups who think that a democratic form of differentiation
between locals and foreigners is on the agenda. The press campaigns that feed public
discourse in towns and cities assign an inferior social position to migrants.11 The
production of stigma is widespread in Italian society according to a current evolutionary
worldview that is expressed in everyday discursive and cultural practices at all levels. In
these world-views, different cultures are often taken as stable and homogeneous and each
migrant seems ontologically to be different from an Italian person. It is in particular in
these small towns and in rural areas that the process of “soft” differentiation leads to
explicit forms of racism against immigrants, while in the outskirts of big cities, such as
Milan, Rome or Naples and in cities with less then half a million inhabitants such as
Padua, Verona, Bergamo, Alessandria one can find even more right-wing, ideologically
oriented racism.
The construction of industrial districts in northern Italy has given prominence to
new economic and political actors. These local entrepreneurs began to build cultural and
social models around their firms. In the same way entrepreneurs coming from Italian
industrial districts promote a new kind of relationship inside and outside the factory in
Eastern Europe. The forms of neo-colonialism developed by Italian businessmen abroad
contributed to a neo-colonial attitude at home. The domestic neo-colonialism does not
relate only to migration but to the history of Italian migration and to Italian foreign
policy, including the policy of direct investments abroad. It is no coincidence that among
white migrants in Italy, the Romanians are at the moment the most stigmatized groups: in
Romania around 100 thousand Italians entrepreneurs, technicians and managers supervise
directly or indirectly the work of 800 thousand Romanians with highly discriminatory
practices and with a widespread hostility to any form of collective bargaining (Redini,
2008; Sacchetto, 2007).
The neo-colonialist policies by political entrepreneurs are largely underpinned by
racism. Many media, often controlled by businessmen or political parties also support
these policies.12 The campaign that was unleashed against the Romanians at the end of
2007 and lasting throughout 2008 found a large support in the world of Italian media. The
11
It should be added that in some cases union members contribute to fuel these forms of
differentiation: at the end of 2008, the secretary of the Cgil (leftist) union in the Treviso
province, Paolino Barbiero, said it was necessary to suspend issuing permits of residence
for migrants in Italy. It is a measure that would put undocumented immigrants in Italy to
the mercy of traffickers.
12
A recent study by the Center of radio and television audiences in Italy has brought to
light that time devoted to crime, violence and robberies has more than doubled from
10.4% of television news in 2003 (when Berlusconi was premier, coalition of centre-right
parties) to 23.7 % of 2007 (when Prodi was premier, coalition of centre-left parties); see
Centro d’Ascolto dell’Informazione Radiotelevisiva (2008).
149
hysteria was fed by the social invisibility of Romanians who can easily pass for Italians.
In northern Italy the widespread activism of local public administrators of the Northern
League has led to the approvals of many municipal injunctions and resolutions that are
imbued with racism. The systematic nature of this “dirty work” is legitimated by
members of parliament and Berlusconi cabinet members of the Northern League, as well
as from other parties of the center-right and to some extent of the center-left, who have
joined forces in the name of “order”.13 Consequently the deputy mayor of Treviso,14
Giancarlo Gentilini, felt free to proclaim to the annual meeting of the Lega Nord in
Venice in September 2008 (Negroski, 2008):
People of the League! The League has awakened! The walls of Rome are
collapsing under the blows of the League’s hammer. My word is
revolution. This is the Gospel according to Gentilini, the Decalogue of the
first mayor sheriff. I want the revolution against the illegal immigrants. I
want the revolution against the camps of nomads and gypsies. I have
destroyed two of them in Treviso. And now there are no more there. I want
to eliminate the children who come to steal from the elderly! If Maroni
[the home secretary and a member of North League] said “zero tolerance”,
I want double zero tolerance. I want the revolution against television,
newspapers that tarnished the League. I'll put the cork in the mouth and in
the ass to those journalists. I don’t want to see them anymore... I want the
revolution against the prostitutes. They too must pay taxes. All pay taxes;
also the prostitutes must pay. I want the revolution against those who want
to open mosques and Islamic centers, including the Catholic Church
hierarchy, who say: “Let them pray”. No! Go to pray in a desert! I want to
open a carpet factory to give them the carpets, but they must go to pray in
a desert. Stop! I have also written to the Pope: Muslims must go back to
their countries. I want the revolution against the judiciary. Venetian judges
must apply the law. I want the revolution against those who want to give
pensions to the elderly relatives of “extra-EU” domestic workers. This is
our money! And I want to take it. This is the Gentilini’s Gospel:
everything to us and if something remains to the other ... But nothing will
be left over. I want the revolution against the phone centers where visitors
eat in the middle of the night and then piss on the walls: let them go and
piss in their mosques. I want a revolution against the burqa and veils for
women. I want to see women in the face, because behind the veil there
could be a terrorist with a machine gun between his legs. Let them show
their navel ... if anything. I want the revolution against those who would
give the vote to non-EU people. I do not want to see blacks, browns or
greys who teach our children. What will they teach, the civilization of the
desert? The vote is entirely up to us. I need the Northern League people.
13
On this subject see a chronicle by Bettin, 2009.
Treviso was recognized by a report of Caritas as the area where greater integration of
immigrants on the basis of parameters (such as employment rate, level of wages, school
participation) that are not related to local public policies, but to market mechanisms or
national policies.
14
150
The migrant is identified as a dangerous figure who must be monitored and
inspected in depth before “we” are able to offer him/her an option to become "like us".
The creation of the immigrant threat is perhaps an attempt to reconstruct a lost
legitimacy, mirroring a shift from the welfare state to the security state. The narrow space
where today people can build mutual trust does not include extensive public socialization.
And this stricture gives rise to the autonomous initiatives of civil society, such as private
paramilitary patrols, which aim to re-build forms of community that are based on
belonging to some form of communality.
6. RHETORICAL PATTERNS AND FORMS OF PROTECTION OF MIGRANTS
The segmentation of the labour market is the product of the action of both employers and
migrants when they rely on social networks for their needs. In the Italian labour market
some nationalities are excluded from certain tasks, while almost all the immigrants are
precluded from high-wage jobs and more generally from managerial work. Once their
university degrees and professional skills are devaluated, migrants are stereotyped,
sometimes in a soft way, sometimes with a hard hand. The devaluation of their degrees is
a process analogous to what currently happens to many young Italians, but the latter have
the advantage of family and personal networks. In fact, in areas where it is easy to find
jobs, as in northern industrial districts, local young people often drop out of school and
are initiated in their late teens to early paid work. These strategies, particularly in small
towns under 10-15 thousand inhabitants, are sustained by the young people’s hunger for
income and even more by pressure from the local community, which wants them to prove
their mettle.
The rhetoric surrounding the culture of work supports the idea that work is an
instrument of integration, a position widely shared by all parliamentary parties and
approved by a significant proportion of people working in self-help groups of migrants
and sometimes by migrants themselves. The extreme economic rationality that society
requires from migrants sets them into a world where they “are fine as long as they work”.
Migrants may sometimes seek to maximize their presence in economic terms because
they do not want to sacrifice themselves forever on the altar of accumulation. However,
in the migrants’ conduct one can easily detect strategies to minimize the consumption of
their bodies. The monetization of health, as well as of other “rights” that sometimes
migrants claim is a response to a climate of racism, to bureaucratic resistance to the
renewal of their permits of residence and to obtaining family reunion, besides low wages.
The more insecure the presence of migrants, the more they try to make money during the
time they have to spend in Italy. In this regard it should be noted that in the first period of
presence in Italy, when they have little money, migrants are very vulnerable to all sorts of
blackmail.
The so-called deserving migrant should be a flexible homo oeconomicus, who
might one day even become a citizen. This is one of the forms of access to citizenship
through economic achievement. In the town of Cittadella (Padova) the local government
passed an injunction by which it is stated that legal residence will be given only to those
persons who can prove they have an income of at least 5000€ per year. What happens, for
example, with a family of four persons where there is just one breadwinner making €
151
19,000 a year? Thus the easiest way to citizenship is the possession of considerable
wealth. For most migrants wage labour is the only road to inclusion. Social integration
into Italian society takes place in a long process of good behaviour under a hierarchical
command that radiates from the workplace to the public space. The presence of
immigrants is tolerated when it is connected to their subordination and deference, a fate
that is chained to their labour situation (Sayad, 2002). It is not surprising that in 2008 the
Northern League proposed a points residence permit (Anonymous, 2008a), according to a
principle of rewards and punishments in order not only to discipline migrants, but also to
transform their presence into a state of constant insecurity.
Stereotypes and institutional practices that migrants have to confront are
widening. The need to establish a social order in which the privilege of skin colour and of
Italian-ness dictates the migrants’ conduct produces strong changes in public discourse.
Public discourse has become obsessed with identifying the problems caused by migrants
on the basis of different rhetorics (moral, demographic, cultural and economic) shaping
common sense (Dal Lago, 1999). Indeed, the discretion in providing the services offered
by the public bureaucracy (social workers, policemen, officers of agencies) is wideranging. It reaches the point of building routines, which differ from place to place and
from person to person; these routines are obviously detrimental to the rights of migrants
(Rambaldi, 2007:104). From police stations to public agencies, from school to real estate
agencies such operators practice micro-transactions on the basis of their broad discretion.
To migrants’ eyes they are a mirror of the real way of working of “really-existent”
democratic regimes.
We turn now briefly to two of these agencies: the first one in relation to jobs, the
second one in relation to housing. The temporary work agencies and cooperatives allow
the construction of forms of indirect discrimination through the definition of profiles in
which the individual experiences and the professional or academic qualifications are
devaluated if not unrecognized. At the same time they contribute to employment
segregation with a selection targeted by nationality, gender, age, based on the demands of
employers as well as on their prior knowledge. Stereotyping becomes one of the methods
that facilitate this selection (Fullin, 2004; Sacchetto and Sbraccia, 2006). On the other
hand, even without the mediation of temporary work agencies or cooperatives
entrepreneurs themselves, particularly in small and medium companies, are the ones who
implement specific personnel selections by segregating migrant workers in the heavier
tasks and lower wages without much respect of standard work schedules (see Andall,
2007). In some cases companies, especially those of medium-large size, discriminate all
migrants, or in the case of smaller companies, select immigrants of certain nationalities
only. As it has been noted (Luciano et al., 2007:161), small businesses and semi-legal
firms do the discriminating job of the early stage of discrimination and socialization to
brutal conditions of work, while larger firms collect the fruits of this selection by offering
better working conditions later on.
In the case of real estate agencies their role is often crucial in finding housing,
especially in urban centers. The widespread prejudices of real estate agents, tenants,
owners and managers of condominiums tend to separate natives and immigrants. With
the general reluctance to rent to foreigners or the request of heavy down payments in
advance, we are not far from the formation of real ghettos (Vianello, 2006). Especially in
cities the management of the property market is in the hands of agencies that sometimes
ask for advance money for brokerage, without any guarantee that they provide housing
152
for rent. Agencies and owners have built a sort of separate housing market for migrants.
Below standard housing is usually first offered to migrants. There are also cases in which
the same entrepreneurs solve migrants’ housing needs by offering housing of their own
property for rent, thus lowering the level of labour costs. The most evident form of
discrimination with regard to the use of buildings, is no doubt the endemic denial of any
stable place for public cult for Muslims. The campaigns against building and opening
mosques have spread across northern Italy, although there are strong differences in the
offer of spaces for religious practices between different municipalities.
7. CONCLUSION
In some ways the current situation seems similar to that of other European countries that
have long experienced the presence of migrants in their working environments. The
development and sustenance of forms of racism in Italy are not unique but they have
some specific characteristics. As we have seen one element of the current Italian racism
and its development, has been its link not only with the presence of foreigners in the
country, but with the first colonial adventures and with the re-localization of production
abroad in recent years. At the same time, the defeat of the working class at the end of the
seventies led the left institutional parties to a gradual shift away from the so-called
“popular masses” in favour of the so-called middle class.
From this perspective, the transformation of industrial districts in northern Italy
with their transfers of operation abroad and, in some cases, their dissolution has also
profoundly changed the social and working relationships between local workers and
employers on one side and between them and migrant workers. In 1990s the “inclusion”
of immigrant workers has been developed as a model creating a differentiated system
avoiding work and social tensions. In fact, that type of "integration" promoted the forms
of discrimination that became the normal treatment and later spread to the rest of the
country.
The migration system that Italy seems to embrace is that of a sustained turnover
on the basis of a “just-in-time” migration, which should lead to sending back migrants
once jobs get scarce (Düvell, 2004:45). The current production model of contracts and
subcontracts, internal or external to the so-called industrial districts, is working as it
succeeds in controlling and directing migration. But migrant workers in Italy, as
elsewhere, seem unwilling to submit to bullying recruitment agencies, as well as to daily
discrimination.
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155
VALUE PATTERNS AND LOCAL IDENTITY IN FLANDERS:
IN SEARCH OF A REGIONAL IDENTITY
Marc Hooghe
K.U. Leuven, Centre for Political Research
1. CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND POLITICAL CULTURE
Calls for centrifugal regionalism often are based on cultural arguments. It is claimed that
distinct regional identities call for institutional change, in order to arrive at a closer match
between political structures and cultural realities. The political structures should cover the
same geographical region as the pre-existing cultural distinctions, it is argued. This kind
of argumentation, self-evidently, is not new. Already from the more romantic nationalism
in the 18th century, it was argued that the Volksgeist, i.e. the whole of attitudes and
cultural artifacts that are considered as typical for one specific group of the population,
should have a direct bearing on political structures and the functioning of the political
system. Indeed, more recent nationalist movements too, have increasingly relied on the
argument that specific cultural identities should lead to the construction of autonomous
regions (Llobera, 1983). It is striking to observe that in most of the current scholarly
literature, the question whether the argument about cultural identities is empirically valid,
is simply ignored. By itself, bracketing this question sounds like a sensible research
strategy. Previous attempts to arrive at a fixed list of criteria to establish whether a group
has a “sufficient” cultural distinctiveness, did not lead to reliable results. Linguistic,
ethnic or religious cleavages might serve as obvious markers of identity, but here too,
there are no reasons to assume that these cleavages would automatically lead to the
formation of distinct cultural identities. Ever since the seminal volume by Benedict
Anderson (1983), it is more or less taken for granted that cultural identities always tend to
be constructed, and that therefore, there is no way to make any firm, more objective
claims about the occurrence or the stability of these identities. To summarize it all too
crudely: if a group decides to consider itself as a distinct cultural or ethnic group, then we
might as well assume that this claim is founded and can be defended in a successful
manner.
For the Flemish nationalist movement, too, the cultural identity argument has
worked well. Especially in recent years, it has been argued that more autonomy for the
distinct communities in Belgium would lead to “better” government, as it would allow
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the development of political institutions that are more closely tied to the preferences of
Flemish citizens. Since 2007, it has been difficult in Belgium to form a stable and
performative federal government. This political stalemate has even further increased the
claim that a regionalization, or even a split-up of the country could lead to more effective
government, by granting the Dutch speaking part of the population of the country more
autonomy. It is hoped that this autonomy will be used in an effective manner, since the
regional government of the Flemish region does not have to deal with strong cultural
differences among the population.
Another reason for the increasing popularity of the cultural identity claim is that it
has become rather difficult in the Belgian context to find other good elements or identity
markers to legitimize the claim for more autonomy. Self-evidently, there are no ethnic
differences between the two language communities, and religious differences have also
become very limited. Back in the 1950s it could still be argued that Flanders was a
‘catholic region’, while the Socialist Party was much more strongly present in Wallonia,
leading to a strong counterbalance to the power of the Catholic church. Currently
available data, however, show that the process of secularization is equally strong in both
regions of the country, so that in practice, both in the French as in the Flemish region less
than 10 per cent of the population can be considered as a practicing Catholic.
The only identity marker that is still available, therefore, is at first sight the
different language of the two major communities in the country. It is striking to observe,
however, that language as such is hardly ever used as an argument in favor of a distinct
identity. The fact that part of the population of Belgium speaks Dutch, and another part
speaks French as a first language, does not lead to the claim that both groups inherently
have different cultural and political identities. The kind of romantic nationalism that was
prevalent in the 18th and 19th century, apparently has completely been abandoned. One of
the reasons for this evolution might be that the Flemish nationalist movement no longer
can align itself with leading novelists or composers, that would express the “essence” of
the Flemish cultural identity and heritage. Back in the 19th century this was still the case,
and the idea was that these novelists or composers expressed the essential Flemish
identity. As such, language or culture in general could be portrayed as defining elements
of that culture, uniting ordinary citizens and the leading cultural elite. This kind of
“natural alliance” between the nationalist movement and the cultural elite, however, has
now altogether disappeared and some of the best known novelists in Flanders are even
rather critical about the political claims of the Flemish nationalist movement. It has
therefore become difficult to see the Dutch language by itself as the major defining
element of the Flemish identity.
There are two other, more strategic reasons why language arguments are seldom
invoked in the current discourse. First, the use of language arguments inevitably refers to
the Netherlands, as Flanders and the Netherlands share the same language. In practice,
however, there is no relationship at all between the Netherlands and the Flemish national
movement. In the Netherlands itself, there is hardly any sympathy for what is considered
to be an outdated romantic nationalist movement and again this stands in contrast to the
situation in the first half of the 20th century. Leading intellectuals like the historian Pieter
Geyl, during that era still had a marked interest in the Flemish nationalist movement, but
this has now completely disappeared. For the more traditional parts of the Flemish
nationalist movement, the Netherlands is not seen as a natural ally, either, because of a
discontent about the “progressive” side of Dutch society and politics, e.g., with regard to
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multiculturalism, soft drugs and youth culture. Since 2002, the Netherlands itself seems
to have turned away from this multicultural and tolerant culture, and this is associated
with the rise of populist parties. These populist parties, too, however, stress Dutch
identity, and they do not seem to have much interest in Belgium. In the past, there have
been some contacts between the extreme right Vlaams Belang, and Dutch right populist
politicians, but these contacts did not lead to any clear cooperation. If the Flemish claim
for autonomy and cultural distinctiveness would be based on language arguments, the
only logical construction would be a close union between Flanders and the Netherlands.
Since, for various ideological reasons, there is obviously no preference for this scenario,
language has become outdated as an argument, and it is even striking to observe that
some of the leading Flemish nationalist politicians do not even bother anymore to use
standard Dutch, but decide to express themselves in some local dialect. It has to be noted
in this respect that Flemish nationalism is quite unique. A national minority in a country
usually enjoys a more or less privileged relation with the country where its language is
used as the majority language. In some cases there is even an intensive stream of
information and resources between the “mother country” and the national minority. For
the Dutch speaking group in Belgium and the Netherlands, however, this relation has
become extremely weak.
The second strategic reason not to use language as a “founding myth” or major
marker of identity is that this almost automatically would imply the abandoning of the
Brussels region. As it is clear that ca. 85 per cent of the population of Brussels does not
speak Dutch at home, it would be completely incoherent to claim that Brussels should
still be seen as a part of the autonomous region of Flanders. In the best case, one could
obtain some special minority rights for the Dutch speaking population of Brussels, but
much more could not be hoped for. This too is a step that Flemish nationalists are very
reluctant to take. It has to be noted in this regard that, while since a couple of years,
Flemish nationalist groups have called for a stronger autonomy for the Flemish region,
they remain very vague on what this would entail for the Brussels region. Some
politicians have argued that the two communities would govern Brussels “together”, but
no further details have yet been given on how this could be envisioned. It is more or less
taken for granted, however, that some relation between Flanders and Brussels would
remain in existence, despite the fact that this is seldom made very explicitly. To cite but
one example: when the extreme right-wing Vlaams Belang party in January 2010
organized a conference on “full independence for Flanders”, the map that was used to
illustrate this claim simply included Brussels as part of the “independent Flemish state”,
despite the fact that only a small minority of the Brussels population speaks Dutch.
Given all these considerations, “language” clearly is no longer sufficient to use as
a claim for special groups rights for the Flemish population of Belgium. In the current
discourse on Flemish identities, therefore, the concept of culture is used in a much
broader but also much vaguer sense. It is taken to include all forms of attitudes, beliefs
and ideological preferences, and the claim self-evidently remains that the Flemish
cultural identity is rather distinct from the Walloon, of French-speaking cultural identity.
This claim is related to economic differences. It is argued that the cultural differences
explain part, or even most of the differences in the economic dynamic of the two regions
in the country. Again, there are some good grounds for this claim. Since the 1960s, the
economic dynamic of the two regions has moved in sharply opposite directions and it is
argued that part of the explanation for this trend lies in the different cultural identity of
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the two regions. Economic research indeed indicates that cultural characteristics of a
society can have a strong impact on economic development, so in this regard too, this
claim seems plausible.
Claiming that a different cultural identity is responsible for the observed
difference in economic outcomes, strategically is a very clever move. It would be
considered as not legitimate to quote the economic differences directly as a major reason
for more autonomy. This claim, most likely would be seen as a form of group selfishness,
and this would jeopardize the odds that the claim would be accepted. Not invoking the
economic differences directly, but rather relying on the alleged cultural causes for this
different dynamic is much more legitimate. On the one hand, it builds on a centuries old
tradition, linking culture and nationalism. But on the other hand, it also has a very strong
impact on the moral status of the “other” group involved, i.e., the French speaking
population of Belgium. By using this argument, they are no longer seen as just a part of
the population that happens to have lower average income levels, but the implicit claim is
that they themselves are to blame for this lack of economic development. It is because
they have the “wrong” culture, that economic life in the Walloon region is less
prosperous than it is in the Flemish region. From a rhetorical perspective, this is a very
strategic move as it actually shifts the blame to the other community. Centrifugal
regionalism is no longer seen as an expression of group selfishness, but it is rather
implied that the other group is to blame, because of its failure to adapt to a more modern,
enterprise-oriented culture.
While the claim about “different cultures” has been rhetorically very successful,
the disadvantage, of course, is that it is open to empirical falsification, as we have access
to reliable survey data on prevalent value patterns and cultural orientations of the Belgian
population. An analysis of these data should allow us to ascertain whether the cultural
identities of the Dutch and the French speaking population of Belgium really are as
different as is often claimed they are. If there are indeed strong differences in political
ideas, value patterns and levels of geographical identification, these should be seen in
survey figures. Population surveys routinely assess the most important social and political
values, and if there are no significant differences in this regard, the conclusion should be
that value patterns only reside in some obscure and trivial values, that are not included in
this kind of survey research.
2. CULTURAL IDENTITIES
The claim that societies and populations have distinct cultural identities, by itself, is
plausible. Even if we limit ourselves to a European context, it can be ascertained quite
easily that national cultures can differ quite strongly from another. The question on what
kind of dimensions societies could be differentiated, however, remains open for debate
(Hofstede, 1980). It can be noted, however, that cultural identities differ with regard to
support for equality and egalitarian distribution of values, trustworthiness and support for
authoritarian social arrangements. While in the Scandinavian countries and Western
Europe trust and egalitarian arrangements seem to be more dominant, respect for
hierarchy and institutions is more clearly present in Southern and in Eastern Europe.
An important element clearly are the religious traditions of the country involved.
Even in highly secularized societies, survey research shows convincingly that traditional
160
patterns of religiously inspired attitudes still prevail and have an impact on current value
patterns. Inglehart (1997), e.g., shows that in Protestant countries postmodern attitudes
and values are more prevalent. Protestant countries scores systematically higher on
support for equal rights, protection of the environment, gender equality and trusting
attitudes. Ethnocentrism and authoritarian attitudes, on the other hand, are systematically
lower in Protestant countries, compared to European countries with a Catholic or an
Orthodox tradition. The finding that religious tradition still plays such a fundamental role
in explaining value patterns might be counter-intuitive to some extent, since we know
that secularization has fundamentally changed the attitudes and values of the European
population. This is even more so in formerly Protestant countries like the Scandinavian
countries, where church attendance stands at a remarkably low level. Nevertheless, it
seems that this kind of historical background still has an effect on contemporary value
patterns. The assumption is that religious traditions still operate as a kind of background
cultural setting, determining the set of cultural and attitudinal options that are available
for a secularized population.
A second major distinctive feature is the role of trust. Basically, trust can be seen
as a kind of coordination mechanism, governing the interactions between citizens. The
presence of trust facilitates these interactions, and it reduces the need for a third-party
enforcement of interaction deals among citizens. Empirical research shows quite
convincingly and consistently that while some societies score very high on trust levels,
others are equally characterized by low trust levels (Nannestad, 2008). Trust also has
important side-effects on the way a society is being run. It has been shown that trust is
generated more easily when social en economic differences between groups of the
population are more limited. In political systems and societies with strong patterns of
inequality, trust levels are systematically lower as neither the dominant group, nor the
oppressed group in society has much reason to develop trust in the way society is being
run. Generalized trust, therefore, is related to the feeling of reciprocity, and we can also
expect to find higher levels of generalized trust in more egalitarian societies (Newton,
2007). As such, we can make the claim that generalized trust measurements are an
essential element if we want to understand the way a society ‘typically’ would function.
In the remainder of this section, empirical evidence will be presented about the
distinctiveness of Dutch and French groups of the population. In this regard, we will rely
on the results of the European Social Survey (ESS), where we will use the results of the
3rd wave, that was collected in 2006. The European Social Survey can be considered as
the most reliable source of survey data on attitudes and behaviors of the European
population.
First, starting with the feeling of generalized trust. The claim is that trusting
societies have it easier to prosper economically, and they are also able to ensure in a more
successful manner quality of life indicators for their population. The standard survey
question for generalized trust is the item: “Most people can be trusted, or you cannot be
too careful in dealing with others”. Within the ESS, respondents could answer on a 0-10
scale on this item, with high figures indicating a trusting attitudes and low figures a
distrusting attitude. Figure 1 shows strong differences between Northern European
countries and Eastern European countries. We can observe – and this is also in line with
previous research – that trust levels tend to be lower in the French speaking part of
Belgium, but differences are rather limited, compared to the strong differences between
other European countries. While the trust level of the respondents in the Dutch speaking
161
part of Belgium is quite closely related to the trust level in the Netherlands, we can
observe that the trust level in the French speaking part is almost the same as the trust
level in France.
Figure 1. Generalized Trust levels in Europe, ESS 2006
8
7
6
5
4
3
nia
ov
e
Sl
Po
la n
d
(F
)
um
Be
lgi
Fr
an
ce
De
nm
ar
k
Ne
th
er
la n
ds
Be
lgi
um
(D
)
Ge
rm
an
y
2
If we subsequently ask respondents to place themselves on a left-right scale, the
same pattern emerges. Both the Dutch as the French speaking population of Belgium can
be found quite closely in the middle of the European sample of countries (Figure 2).
Again, the Dutch speaking population is very close to the level of the Netherlands, while
the French speaking population just as closely mirrors the level of France. Differences
with countries like Germany or Poland, on the other hand are quite outspoken. The figure
clearly shows that the political differences between the two communities in the country
should not be overestimated. Despite the fact that the party system shows fundamental
differences between Flanders and Wallonia, this clearly does not imply that the
ideological preferences of the two communities would be radically different.
Figure 2. Left-Right Scale in European Countries, ESS 2006
7
6
5
4
3
Finally, we also have a look at an attitude that can be considered as politically
very salient in the current debate: ethnocentrism. Here too, it is often taken for granted
that there must be strong differences between the two communities, as Flanders has a
highly successful extreme-right and ethnocentric party, while this is not the case in the
Walloon region. Again, however, it is shown that differences in ethnocentric attitudes are
not that strong (Figure 3). While indeed ethnocentrism levels are a bit higher in Flanders
than in the French speaking community, the difference remains limited. The fact that the
162
Vlaams Belang party is so strong in Flanders, while the Front National is rather marginal
in the Walloon region therefore also has to be explained by differences in organizational
structure and in the political opportunity structure in the region, and not just by
differences in the level of ethnocentrism.
Figure 3. Ethnocentrism levels in European countries, ESS 2006
6
5
4
3
Ge
rm
an
Be
y
lgi
um
(D
Ne
)
th
er
lan
ds
Be
lg
ium
(F
)
De
nm
ar
k
Po
lan
d
Fr
an
ce
Sl
ov
en
ia
2
The same analysis can be performed for other socially and politically relevant
value patterns too. In practice, however, results are usually comparable. Both the Dutch
and the French speaking communities of Belgium are always close to the European
average, with the Dutch speaking community closer to the score of the Netherlands, and
the French speaking community closer to the score of France. As such, this confirms the
notion that Belgium in practice can be considered as an average European country,
uniting elements from the Northern and the Southern culture of Europe. The cultural
distance between the two communities, on average, however, remains limited. If there are
strong and insurmountable differences between the two communities in the country,
standard survey research methods at least fail to detect them.
3. GEOGRAPHICAL IDENTITY
We can also opt for a more direct test of the cultural argument. Maybe there is not as
much difference in value patterns, but it could be argued that Dutch and French
inhabitants of Belgium still identify in a completely different way. The argument goes
that the Flemish population identifies most strongly with its region and its own language
group, and not with the level of the Belgian state. Identity can be operationalized in a
number of ways. The identification with an ethnical, cultural, religious or ideological
group can be measured and the intensity of this bond can be assessed. As Belay
(1996:323) states: “Society within the nation-state pushes and pulls the individual
towards a variety of identities such as ethnicity, gender, race, class and the like.” One
way of measuring identity is measuring the subjective closeness to these concepts. This
involves, however, a rather arbitrary choice of the categories that will have to be included
in the questionnaire.
A second, and in the scope of this chapter more applicable way, is by defining
identity as a feeling of belonging to a certain place. Place attachment serves a number of
163
purposes, such as giving us a sense of security, linking us to people who are important to
us, and as a symbolic bond to people, past experiences, ideas and culture (Altman and
Low, 1992). A rather pragmatic but nevertheless important consideration is that this also
allows us to measure the concept in a more reliable manner. In most survey formats
(whether face-to-face or postal), respondents provide answers from their home context,
i.e., the context that they actually spend an important part of their lives in. We can
therefore be quite confident that if they state that the city, or the country they live in,
provides them with their most important geographical identity, this is indeed something
that will remain relatively constant.
An important part of research therefore uses identity as place attachment. This is
also the case in the European Values Survey (EVS) that we will use in this analysis. As
the European Social Survey did not include sufficient information in its variable on this
topic, it could not be used for this specific analysis. The EVS is a large-scale, crossnational, and longitudinal survey research program on basic human values. It is carried
out under the responsibility of the European Values Study Foundation. It provides
insights into the ideas, beliefs, preferences, attitudes, values and opinions of citizens all
over Europe. The survey uses face to face interviewing of a nationally representative part
of the population to ensure the reliability of the collected information (Halman, 2001).
The data used are from the 3rd wave in 1999/2000.
To reflect a locally oriented identification versus a broader, more European or
universal identification, the following question was used in the EVS questionnaire:
Q
Which of these geographical groups would you say you belong first of all?
Q
And second?
The possible answers consisted out of the following list:
- Locality or town where you live
- Region or county where you live
- Your country as a whole
- Europe
- The world as a whole
A first look at the distribution of the answers sheds a light on the feelings of belonging of
the Belgian respondents. Furthermore, it is striking to observe some difference in the
answering pattern according to the three regions of the country (Figure 4).
164
Figure 4. Primary identification according to region (N=1912)
Flanders
Brussels
Wallonia
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
locality or town
region county
country as a
whole
Europe
world as a whole
Main level of geographical identification for respondents in Flanders, Brussels and
Wallonia. Source: EVS.
A first look at the data already shows that local forms of identification are much
more predominant than global forms of identity: less than 10 per cent of all respondents
would label themselves primarily as “world citizens”. The data allow us to observe some
clear differences between the three regions of the country. For the respondents in
Flanders, the identification with the own city or town is clearly most important, while
their level of identification with Belgium is rather low, compared to that of the
respondents in Wallonia and Brussels. One out of three respondents in Wallonia identifies
first with the country, a bit less than a third with their town. Only 15% identifies first with
the Walloon region, and one out of ten identifies first with Europe or the world as a
whole. Inhabitants of Brussels are quite similar, except that a smaller group identifies first
with the town, and a slightly bigger group identifies with Europe or the world. This is
quite understandable, since the distinction between town and region is not so clear in the
case of Brussels. Furthermore, Brussels also has the most diverse and most cosmopolitan
population of the entire country. We can observe, however, that the region never emerges
as the most important level of identification, as is sometimes suggested in some of the
nationalist rhetoric.
One will remember that the questionnaire allowed respondents to fill in two
priorities. The reason to do so was that it was felt as rather artificial to force respondents
to give just one priority, and to give paramount importance to that one single level. It was
hoped if respondents were offered two possibilities, this might lead to a more qualified,
and therefore more valid measurement instrument. The answer on this second priority,
however, does not seem to be that informative. For the respondents in Flanders, the
region clearly comes second, but for the other two regions it is hard to find a pattern
(Figure 5). What is clear however, is that European and global citizenship, still are not the
most favoured levels of identity (Table 1).
165
Figure 5. Second identification according to region
Flanders
Brussels
Wallonia
45,0
40,0
35,0
30,0
25,0
20,0
15,0
10,0
5,0
0,0
locality or town
region county
country as a
whole
Europe
world as a whole
Secondary level of geographical identification for respondents in Flanders, Brussels and
Wallonia. Source: EVS.
Table 1. First and second identification, according to region (Column %)
First identification
Total Valid N
Second identification
locality or
town
region or
county
country as a
whole
Europe
world as a
whole
locality or
town
region
county
country as a
whole
Europe
world as a
whole
Total Valid N
Flanders
Brussels
Wallonia
Belgium
40,5
20,9
29,9
35,2
24,3
20,0
15,0
20,9
23,1
27,5
34,7
27,3
5,0
15,3
10,3
7,7
7,0
16,4
10,1
8,9
1082
176
611
1869
18,4
14,7
23,0
19,5
39,9
24,7
25,0
33,7
25,4
30,3
30,1
27,4
11,8
23,1
15,5
14,0
4,4
7,2
6,5
5,3
1085
173
596
1854
Is the option to allow respondents a first and second order indeed a good and valid
way to measure identity, and does it lead to additional information that would not have
been available, if respondents were offered only one option? In order to answer this
166
question, we first made a simple cross-tabulation of the two answers (Tables 2, 3, 4). The
results suggest that respondents mostly use the second option to reinforce their original
position, as they prefer the option that is immediately adjacent to their first option.
Table 2. Crosstabulation first and second identification (Flanders) (N=1067)
(Row %)
Second identification
locality region country Europe world
or town county
as a
as a
whole
whole
First
locality or
0,0
32,0
3,3
3,0
61,7
identification
town
region county
0,0
40,3
12,6
3,8
43,3
country as a
23,1
0,0
18,9
3,8
54,2
whole
Europe
15,7
27,2
28,1
0,0
29,0
world as a
27,1
18,4
13,5
0,0
41,0
whole
Table 3. Crosstabulation first and second identification (Brussels) (N=172) (Row %)
Second identification
locality region country Europe world
or town county
as a
as a
whole
whole
First
locality or
identification
town
0,0
33,4
13,4
4,5
48,8
region county
21,6
0,0
16,3
4,8
57,3
country as a
whole
23,9
0,0
28,6
8,3
39,2
Europe
9,6
20,2
0,0
19,2
51,0
world as a
whole
14,6
3,3
26,1
0,0
56,0
In the Flemish region respondents tend to be most oriented toward the own local
community or to Belgium as a whole. Brussels does not have a clear profile on this point,
which may be because of the small sample and the very diverse composition of
inhabitants. Respondents of the Walloon region clearly identify strongly with the country
in general.
167
Table 4. Crosstabulation first and second identification (Wallonia) (N=595) (Row %)
Second identification
locality region country Europe world
or town county
as a
as a
whole
whole
First
locality or
identification
town
0,0
39,5
5,0
5,7
49,8
region county
32,0
0,0
18,6
4,7
44,7
country as a
whole
31,1
0,0
24,5
4,7
39,6
Europe
16,4
15,2
0,0
23,5
44,8
world as a
whole
28,3
5,1
25,9
0,0
40,7
The cross tabulations suggest that “city” and “region” are often used together,
while the same is true for “Europe” and the “world”. Country, as an in-between level, is
less clear, as there is a different pattern in the two major regions of the country. If we
want to summarize the results of this question, therefore, we propose to construct two
different groups: one stressing local or regional identities (i.e. local and regional), and
one stressing European or global identities. The figures suggest indeed that a regional
identity is more important in Flanders than it is in Wallonia. Contrary to some of the
nationalist claims, therefore, it is clear that the first, and most important level of
geographical identification in Flanders refers to the town or local community one lives in,
and not to the region or the language group as such.
4. CONCLUSION
Despite the claims that the French and the Dutch speaking population show fundamental
differences with regard to their value patterns and level of geographical identification,
empirical research fails to reveal any evidence for this claim. For most attitudes that are
routinely included in survey research, it is clear that both language communities in
Belgium score quite closely to the European average. While the Dutch speaking
community usually is more in line with the scores obtained in the northern part of
Western Europe (especially the Netherlands), the scores for the French speaking
respondents are usually close to the ones obtained by the respondents in France. Still,
however, differences between both languages usually are not, or only weakly significant.
Also with regard to identity, it has to be noted that we did not find empirical
support for most of the claims made by advocates of centrifugal regionalism. A typical
feature of Belgian society rather seems to be the strong focus on local identities, that are
often considered as more important than regional or national identities. Given the fact
that local communities in Belgium already have a strong degree of autonomy, one cannot
observe any preference within public opinion to grant (even) more autonomy to these
local communities.
168
This leads to an interesting observation. Most of the claims that are being made
about distinct identities or levels of identification, do not receive empirical support. Other
analyses have hinted at the fact that for Flemish voters, a reform of Belgian state
institutions that would lead to more autonomy for the regions, is not a priority. Both in
the 2007 and the 2009 elections, Flemish voters were first of all motivated by concerns
about employment and economic development. Despite the fact that reform of the state
institutions figured so high on the political agenda, election research showed in a very
convincing manner that for a vast majority of the voters, state reform was not considered
as a highly salient issue. Simultaneously, however, it can be observed that the drive
toward centrifugal regionalism further gains momentum, and remains an important topic
on the Belgian political agenda. The call by some political parties to implement a strong
reform of Belgian state institutions even led to a prolonged and fundamental political
crisis in Belgium during the 2007-2008 period. Empirical research, however, fails to find
evidence for the claim that this drive would be society-driven, and thus it rather suggests
that some elements within the political elite seem to be the main driving force for the
salience attached to this item on the political agenda. The analysis of the Belgian case,
therefore, suggests that the dynamics of centrifugal regionalism cannot always be
explained by referring to the cultural dynamics among the population. Apparently, the
role of political entrepreneurs, and the availability of a conducive political opportunity
structure are much more important in this regard. Whether this observation is also valid
for other examples of centrifugal regionalism, however, can only be ascertained if we
would have access to comparative research on this matter.
REFERENCES
Altman, I. and S. M. Low (1992), Place Attachment. New York, Plenum Press.
Anderson, B. (1983), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. London, Verso.
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169
CULTURE, VALUES AND THE SOCIAL BASIS OF NORTHERN ITALIAN
CENTRIFUGAL REGIONALISM. A CONTEXTUAL POLITICAL ANALYSIS
OF THE LEGA NORD
Roberto Biorcio (*) and Tommaso Vitale (°)
(*) Università di Milano – Bicocca, Dipartimento di sociologia e ricerca sociale
(°) Centre d’études européennes, Science Po, Paris
1. INTRODUCTION
In the last twenty years, the issue of the autonomy of the northern regions has always
been on the Italian political agenda, even if with ups and downs. The traditional
“Southern Question” has been supplanted in the public debate by the so-called “Northern
Question”. Its appearance and achievement were promoted by three processes.
The first, typically Italian, concerns the crisis of the First Republic and, above all,
the dissolution of the main mass parties (DC, PCI, and PSI) which had guaranteed for
many years the stability of national political representation, while keeping at the same
time close relationships with the local communities. The second process, the current
phase of globalization subsequent to the end of the Cold War, caused many economic and
social problems in Italy, as in the other European countries, and had a very specific
impact on the North of Italy, with its diffused economy and urbanization characterized by
industrial districts and their systems of flexible specialization (Cento Bull and Gilbert,
2001; Cento Bull in this volume). The third process, strictly interlaced with the second, is
the strong increase of migratory flows from countries of the ex-soviet block and from
other continents: their swiftness and intensity caused disorientation, anxieties and fears
among Italians, since they were historically more accustomed to emigration and little
prepared to face the increasing processes of immigration.
The effects of these dynamics created some favourable but not sufficient
conditions for the appearance of the “Northern Question”. It would have hardly emerged
without the success of a political party – the Lega Nord – that built its own identity on the
opposition between the northern regions and the national government. Still, the
relationship between the party founded by Umberto Bossi and the so-called “Northern
Question” is really complex and can be understood according to very different
interpretative keys. We can read it in accordance with a determinist key, by considering
the Lega Nord as a consequence of the Northern Question. Even if this party had not
171
existed, other northern movements would have been born in answer to problems, needs,
and the deficit of representation which characterizes society in many areas of the North of
Italy. A nominalist interpretation, on the opposite, reduces the Northern Question and the
northern movement to a skilful propagandistic invention to manage a large variety of
interests, the only ones considered important and concrete by the political actor and its
electors. The idea of “Padania”, in this view, has no real foundation, and the electoral
success of Lega Nord stands for something else: the complaint against parties, the middle
classes’ tax rebellion, the needs of the ideal “North-eastern entrepreneur”, the
inefficiency of public services, the demand for regional decentralization.
The two opposite perspectives seize some aspects of the relationship existing
between the Lega Nord and the Northern Question, and can provide some significant
cognitive contributions. Nevertheless, both consider the political process as irrelevant,
and deem the dynamics of creation of a public problem as epiphenomenal, by-products of
structural evolutions without autonomy. Besides being criticizable on a theoretical plan,
because indifferent to the generative character of political action (McAdam, Tarrow and
Tilly, 2001), the determinist and the nominalist approaches, in the end, are unable to
explain the whole of factors and actions that led to the appearance of the Northern
Question.
In this chapter we therefore are proposing a different option, of the constructive
type. The main idea is that the growing importance of the Northern Question within the
political debate and the collective imagination could be explained by relating the
subjective political initiative of the Lega with the conditions and replies of the political,
economic and social world. In this sense, our theoretical option follows recent
developments of the aptly defined “Contextual Policy Analysis” (Goodin and Tilly, 2006)
that aims to explain political processes by observing how pertinent actors behave in some
contexts structured by cultural and value constraints, by institutions and their respective
prescriptive and operational instruments, by environments made up of opportunities and
economic interests. In this sense, what we call a constructive approach is very similar to
that sort of studies of the political process which we often refer to, even according to
pragmatic sensitivity (Cefaï and Pasquier, 2004; Cantelli et al., 2009). This approach is
based on the theoretic conviction that a certain degree of autonomy and inventiveness of
political action, even if bound by the context it is placed in, would make a difference and
should be taken into account to obtain reliable explanations of the configurations of
power and the dynamics of public opinion (Boltanski and Claverie, 2007).
2. THE WEAKNESS OF ITALIAN REGIONALISM AND THE FRACTURE
NORTH/SOUTH
The issues of regional autonomy and federalism have never had great political relevance
in Italy, at least until the eighties. The process of building the unitary state had taken a
shape “at the same time so feeble to turn out largely inefficacious and so strong to
multiply the opposing reaction of the country and to reinforce the secular particularistic
feelings” (Romanelli, 1991:714). The persistency of parochialism and particularism and
the differences of the local sub-cultures did not give rise to claims for regional autonomy
and did not provoke conflicts capable to question national unity. Localist type trends are
not usually characterized by the opposition to the state-nation dimension, but by the
172
extraneousness and lack of interest for politics: those who share these trends refer almost
exclusively to the limited horizon of the local communities (Merton, 1949:725). Local
sub-cultures very often coexist with the prevailing culture on a national scale, without
developing significant oppositions. In Italy, localism had expressed itself within the
different subcultures and local political traditions (Bagnasco and Oberti, 1998). From the
Second World War until the end of the Cold War, the local sub-cultures have been
integrated by the most important political cultures on a national scale (Biorcio, 2003).
The mediation of interests on a territorial scale had been guaranteed during the first forty
years of the Republic, both by single parties’ inner mechanisms (with the co-optation of
regional élites and the aimed redistribution of resources), and through a geographic
division of tasks among the most important parties that, due to their privileged
relationships with some territorial areas, were perceived as spokespersons for their
interests and values. In this sense, the main mass parties had guaranteed for many years a
sort of institutionalization of the management of the centre-periphery fracture in the
framework of the Italian state, with an administration characterized by a longstanding
tradition of absolutism and centralism.
The distribution of economic recourses between the different territorial areas did
not cause noteworthy protests in the regions of northern Italy until the eighties. After the
creation of the nation state, the economic and social fracture between North and South
was deep, but the absence of strong ethno-cultural differences allowed the political
system to support an alliance between the economic interests of the two areas, making
territorial mobilization difficult (Trigilia, 1984:82). During the second post-war period,
even though the economic difference between the North and the South was reduced, an
autonomous productive system did not develop in the southern regions (Mingione, 1991).
In the speech of the main Italian parties, the Southern Question was represented as a
national matter: problems of economic development and social modernization of southern
regions were shown as priority commitments for the whole national community.
The institution of “Regions with ordinary statute” in 1970 did not promote
regionalist trends. Only in those regions with a strong linguistic and cultural autonomy
(Valle d’Aosta, South Tyrol, Sardinia, regions with an extraordinary statute) autonomist
parties were able to obtain a considerable electoral following. The ethno-cultural
distinctions between the northern regions and the other Italian regions were really limited
and there were no linguistic gap or religious differences to support more or less
spontaneous mobilizations.
During the second half of the eighties, the rising tax pressure and the high costs of
financing public debt were creating increasing problems for the economy of northern
Italy and the well-being of its population. In years of high inflation and of halving of the
Gross Domestic Product growth rate (relative to the two previous decades), the intense
and sometimes dramatic post-Fordist transition had created an economic context in which
the traditional defence of southern interests lost legitimacy. In a context of strongly
increasing patronage, mass parties were not able to offer a coherent reformulation of the
problems of the South of Italy, and started losing their strategic and selective ability to
represent organized interests. The Southern Question increasingly lost its credibility,
reducing itself to a matter of simple redistribution of resources, often from a political
viewpoint (Cantaro, 1990). The loss of an adequate cultural reference dragged with it a
crisis of legitimacy of the political instruments to support the South of Italy and, shortly
173
afterwards, of the very possibility to consider the Southern Question as a matter of
general interest (Huysseune, 2006: ch. 4)
Nevertheless, it was not just a loss of legitimacy of the South of Italy that created
the conditions for the rising of the Northern Question. In the same period, in fact, another
very significant trend was registered: the weakening of the mass parties’ power of
territorial interest mediation, invested by the effects of the end of the Cold War and by
the crisis of the two main political sub-cultures. The relationship between Italian regions
and national institutions radically changed during the nineties after the unexpected
emergence of Lega Nord. Federalism and the Northern Question attained such an
importance that they strongly affected Italian politics during the following stages.
3. REGIONALIST POPULISM AND THE INVENTION OF PADANIA
The researches on the formation and the first successes of the Lega Nord have
analytically reconstructed the process of development of the new political subject, by
dividing it in different stages, considering both the changes in its proposals, and the
transformation in the distribution of electoral support in relation with territorial contexts
and political and social positions.1 In order to study in a longer period the transformations
of the party led by Umberto Bossi and its interaction with the Italian political system,
today a different periodization can be more suitable, by considering firstly the alternation
that was registered between stages of high electoral growth and stages of decline and
stagnation of support. The simple inspection of the vote percentage obtained by the Lega
Nord during the European and national elections between 1983 and 2009 allows singling
out three waves of electoral successes, spaced out so far by two stages of relative decline
(see Figure 1). The three waves developed in a context of different social and political
opportunities that the Lega Nord could efficaciously manage.
In the eighties the regional leagues created in Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto
had only played a secondary role. They were small formations that re-proposed in Italy
the fundamental ideas of regionalist movements: the defence of traditions and culture
existing in specific territorial contexts together with a request of decentralization of
political power and the promotion of local self-government. For many years, the
outcomes of the autonomist leagues were disappointing (see Figure 1).
The qualitative leap happened in Lombardy in 1989 when the party founded by
Umberto Bossi became the fourth party within the richest and most populated region in
Italy with 470.997 votes (8,1%). The original political proposal of the autonomist leagues
was deeply modified. Under the direction of Bossi, the ethno-regionalist protest was
turned into a popular battle against roman party-power. The North was, in the speech of
the Lega Nord leader, an “economic giant and a political dwarf”. The autonomy of all the
Italian northern regions was presented as the more radical way to get rid of the power of
traditional parties and state bureaucracy. The polarization Lombardy/Rome symbolized in
a very effective way the existing tensions between civil society and the party system and
provided citizens with a concrete point of reference for collective identification (Diani,
1996).
1
See Diamanti, 1993:16-19; Rovati and Mazzette, 1993: 25; De Luna, 1994:43-52;
Biorcio, 1997:35-38: for a recent re-reading see Biorcio, 2010.
174
Far from just being an emerging phenomenon, the Northern Question was
“invented” by the Lega and embedded in a well-defined frame: that of the dispute of the
labouring North against an inefficient, inefficacious and ineffective (good-for-nothing)
political centre.2 The exaltation of values such as the laboriousness and efficiency of
Lombard people in contrast with the shortages of the bureaucratic machinery, gave the
Lega vote a general meaning of rebellion and of affirmation of the weight of a healthy
civil society against the political class. This presentation of its political offer drew its
strength from long period structured modalities to conceive the relationship between civil
society and political representation in Lombardy: here, the tendency to perceive the
productive abilities and the solidarity of civil society in contrast with an extraneous and
mediocre political power has always been diffused (Biorcio, 2001). The regionalist
identity became a point of reference to express a whole set of tensions experienced by
some classes of the population: tensions between citizens and the political class, between
natives and immigrants (southern people before, and “non-Europeans” later), between
common people and the different forms of criminality and deviance (Biorcio and
Mannheimer, 1995). The Lega Lombarda thus managed to establish a mass following by
proposing a combination of regionalism and populist dissent (Biorcio, 1991).
Umberto Bossi’s party proposed an appeal intended both as demos (people as a
whole and at the same time the common people, the mob, the popular masses in
opposition to the élites), and as ethnos (people as ethno-national entity). The efficacious
2
On the most recent developments of the frame analysis for the study of political
processes, cf. Cefaï & Trom, 2000; Snow, 2004; Barisione, 2009.
175
management of this formula was the basis of the successes of all the European populist
movements and parties of the last twenty years because it connected the pole of popular
protest with that of identity (Mény and Surel, 2000:187; Taguieff, 2002:57). This mixture
of populism and regionalism impressed a very defined brand on the formulation of the
Northern Question in Italy, since it not only implies a demand for self-government, but
also as open opposition and challenge to national parties, censured as corrupted because
of their centralism and consequently “Southern-ness”.
The electoral success of Lega Lombarda dragged also that of other regional
leagues that converged in the Lega Nord. In 1992 the expansion in all the northern
regions did not significantly change the general characteristics of the Lega electorate
compared with those of the first electorate of Lega Lombarda (cf. table 1). The social
profile remained interclass, with a particularly accentuated penetration within the
traditional lower middle class (traders, craftsmen, independent farmers) (Mannheimer,
1993:256). As for the social composition, the Lega electorate profile was very similar to
the traditional Christian Democrat one. Then again, the deepest infiltration of the new
party took place, in fact, within the areas long ruled by the Catholic party, while the
diffusion of votes for the Lega was much more reduced within the “red areas”.
TAB. 1. Vote for Northern League by Professional Condition (1991-2008)
Occupation
1991 1994 1996 2001 2006 2008
Businessmen-Prof-Managers
14
15,8 12,4
12
4,4 13,5
Employee Teacher
13,3
16 18,8 10,1
8,2 10,9
Traders-Shopkeepers-CraftsmenFarmers
24
26,5 23,9
7,6 16,8 21,7
Blue Collar Worker
16,6
21,4 31,2 10,7
9,2 19,8
Unemployed
11,2
14,2 17,3
5,9
8,1 15,5
Northern Italy
14,1
16,9 19,8
8,2
8,5 17,2
Sources: Eurisko, Cirm, Abacus, Doxa Pools – Northern ItalianRegions
Some characteristics of territorial contexts particularly influenced the diffusion of
the vote for the Lega. In short, the percentage of votes for the Lega reached very high
levels above all in three types of zones: a) areas where the catholic sub-culture was more
deeply-rooted; b) small villages, in particular those far from big cities; c) areas marked
out by small enterprises systems that in some cases had taken the profile of real industrial
district, and that in other cases remained local production systems that were nevertheless
capable of flexible specialization.
In Italy, the Lega Nord had an essential role in starting up and characterize the socalled “anti-politics cycle” (Mastropaolo, 2000; Marletti, 2002; Mete, 2010) which
strongly contributed to provoke the crisis of the Italian party-system between 1992 and
1993. Berlusconi’s entering the field in 1994 stole from the Lega the representation of the
middle class and of the opposition to the post-communist left, and grabbed a large part of
its electoral consensus. Therefore, the Lega abandoned federalism as a political project in
favour of an independence movement, with a mobilization for the construction of the
“Padanian nation”. By attacking both right-wing and left-wing parties, the Lega managed
to maintain a faithful electorate in many provinces and in 1996 it became the first party in
the northern Italian regions (Agnew et al., 2002).
176
If during the first wave of its electoral successes the Lega Nord had assumed as
privileged reference the crisis of the Italian party-system, afterwards the projects and
initiatives of the “movement” referred primarily to the crisis of the nation-state. The Lega
Nord, during this phase, invested above all in identity-making initiatives, culminating in
the “march on the Po” and the election of the “parliament of Padania”. Of course, it
continued its polemic against the government and party-power, as well as the
management of hostility against new immigrants (no longer Southerners, but “nonEuropeans”) even if the migratory phenomenon had not reached the present levels.
This second wave was characterized also by a transfer of its reference social basis.
The first “anti-partyist” Lega had more success among the lower middle classes and the
northern small entrepreneurs. During the second secessionist wave, workers, most of all,
voted for the Lega Nord (see table 1). In 1996 the Lega collected nearly a third of the
votes among workers residing in the northern regions of Italy (31%). These votes came
above all from small and medium firm workers, those somehow more exposed to
competition and where the identification of workers with the interests of the firms they
are engaged by, is much easier. In these industries, workers attribute more importance to
the dangers of international competition than to those of class relations within the firm.
Analysis shows that votes came also from a lot of trade unions members, even
from the CGIL (the left-wing trade union). Dissociation occurred between the
representation of economic interests strictly speaking, and the political and “identitymaking” representation: workers went on relying on traditional trade-unions (CGIL,
CISL and UIL) for the defence of their economic interests, in fact, Lega unions never had
a great success. As for their political representation, on the contrary, the reference of
Bossi’s party to the local/regional community seemed to intercept better the emerging
“desire for community” within contemporary society discussed by Bauman (2001).
Besides, during those years, the left-wing experienced an increasing crisis of its capacity
to propose efficacious politics to local communities, and the tensions and fears present in
them (Centemeri, 2011).
The disorientation of many social sectors in the context of globalization was
beginning to be perceived (Beirich and Woods, 2000) and the basic idea the Lega Nord
proposed was that only by closing in the local/regional community, it would be possible
to secure it from the dangers of neo-liberal globalization (Huysseune, 2006:184-185).
This way, it is possible to explain the insistence on separatist projects and at the same
time on the policies of international institutions, and the idea of introducing protective
duties against Chinese competition. After 1998, the Lega Nord’s criticisms against the
construction of the European Union also increased.
The separatist turning point was a strategic choice, the outcome of a reflective
elaboration in connection with the difficult fulfilment of the federalist project because of
the impossibility to arouse autonomist movements in the Centre and in the South
(Biorcio, 1997). The separatism of Lega Nord is distinguishable from the historical
separatist and nationalist movements by two essential elements. These movements
impose themselves beginning from a clear form of ethno-cultural differentiation
(linguistic or religious) and involve at least part of the national élites (Cirulli, 2005). The
Lega Nord could not rely upon such resources. The project of secession of the Padania
did not involve the economic, financial, industrial and intellectual élites of the North. The
party has on the contrary always run an explicit polemic against the élites of the North, by
accentuating and displaying its own populist or “common people” character, by
177
simplifying its political language at the most and by introducing in politics expressions
typical of the masses (Dematteo, 2007). In the second half of the nineties, then, the few
intellectuals that joined the movement in the first growing phase abandoned it, while the
electorate of Lega has become more and more popular.
After 1996, the radicalization of the separatist position had accentuated the
isolation of the Lega, reducing its weight in Italian politics. The consensus gained could
not be translated in a significant acquisition of political and institutional power. After the
disappointing outcome of the European elections of 1999, Bossi stipulated a new
coalition with Berlusconi. The Northern Question was tactically redefined, by linking the
possibility of reinforcement of the regional autonomies to the conquest of the national
government; the fight against Roman centralism, a frame on which the Lega Nord had so
much invested, was articulated and partly re-represented in relation to the battle of Forza
Italia against “statism”, i.e. against the intervention of the state in economics considered
pervasive and paralyzing (Biorcio, 2000:261). The axis Lega Nord-Forza Italia was
accredited to the militants of Lega as a sort of alliance for the productive North,
strengthened by the common Lombard origin of the two political formations. In other
words, the coalition was presented as a political way to solve the Northern Question.
The centre-right wing won the political elections in 2001, but the Lega Nord
weakened (8,1% out of the votes in the northern regions, 3,9% on a national scale) (see
Figure 1). Bossi lost support among the most radical electors, while other electoral areas
that had voted for the Lega in the past, were attracted by Berlusconi and his party
(Cavatorta, 2001).
3. THE POLITICIZATION OF SENTIMENTS OF TERRITORIAL BELONGING
The Lega Nord has largely used sentiments of territorial belonging to give a basis to its
project of autonomy of the northern regions. This policy, typical of all ethno-regionalist
movements, had already been followed by the autonomist leagues of the eighties.
Sentiments of territorial belonging assume deeply different meanings according to the
dimensions of the territory and the reference population. The local context is specific and
peculiar, characterized by the possibility for anyone to socially interact with the majority
of the others. The sociological profile of other contexts such as regions and larger
territorial areas is, on the contrary, much more different, as they can originate specific
forms of identification or collective belonging. In this case, references are made to an
area and a populace that cannot be the object of direct and personal experience. These
contexts can only become the referent of specific forms of collective identification by
using symbols and cultural elaborations. The problem, from this point of view, appears
substantially similar to that of the creation of sentiments of national belonging which
refer to an “imagined community”, the projection in a larger context of communitarian
identities existing in a local context3. Even the regional communities and the North,
3
According to the famous definition of Benedict Anderson, the nation is fundamentally a
mental representation, “a political imagined community – and imagined as intrinsically
limited and supreme. It is imagined because the members of a nation, even the smallest,
never know the majority of their fellow-citizens, nor they ever hear of them, and,
nevertheless, the image of their communion lives in everyone’s mind” (Anderson, 2006).
178
central referents for the Lega political identity, belong to the category of imagined
communities. They were built and assumed meaning and significance thanks to the action
of specific political actors that understood the importance and urgency of investing on the
relationship between identity and representation.
The attempts of the autonomist leagues to create a movement and to obtain
consensus around sentiments of regionalist belongings were frustrated at first. In the
beginning of the nineties just a sixth of the northern Italy residents indicated those
sentiments of belongings as primary reference (see table 2). Sentiments of local
(municipalities) and national community belonging were much more diffused. The main
differences between the North and the South appear above all for the sentiments of
belonging to the local context (much more diffused in the South of Italy) and for those
concerning Italy (much more diffused in the North). In 1990 there were no signs of
reinforcement of sentiments of regionalist belonging, nor a significant potential growth of
the fracture centre/periphery. In all the Italian regions, sentiments of territorial belonging
– local, regional and national – coexisted and overlapped with different intensity, without
excluding each other (Segatti, 1995:109). The overwhelming majority of the Italians
recognized themselves at the same time in the local or regional context as well as in the
national one (ibidem:137).
The break-through of the Lega Nord was possible, as shown, thanks to the
combination of the original ethno-regionalism with the populist protest against national
parties. The claim for regional autonomy was changed into a popular battle against the
Roman party-power. After the first electoral successes of the Lega Lombarda and the
Lega Nord, the party proposals began to be known to the public and to assume meaning
for the electorate. The voters of Lega presented an identity-making profile completely
different from the other voters because they more frequently pointed out a greater feeling
of regional belonging. The Lega Nord had progressively built up and promoted a welldefined interpretative outline for the Northern Question: the protest of an industrious
North against an inefficient and parasitic political Centre that distributed resources in the
southern regions to cultivate clienteles and to gain electoral support.
During the following years, the difficulties of realizing the federalist project due
to the impossibility to mobilize autonomist movements in the regions of the Centre and
the South, promoted the Lega separatist turning point. The idea of the regions/nations was
progressively replaced by that of Padania. Appealing to the grudge against the cultural
and political “colonization” and the “robbery” of resources by Rome and the Southerners,
the political initiative of the Lega tried to operate a fusion of sentiments of both local and
regional belonging with the belonging to a new imaginary community with larger
borders: Padania or more simply the “North”.
179
TAB. 2. Sentiment of territorial belonging and electoral preference (1990, 2001 and 2006) (%)
VOTE IN NORTHERN
ALL GEOGRAFIC ZONE
REGIONS
DIFFERENCE
Centre- Centre- Other- North- LegaNorth Centre South Lega
right
left
NR
South Nord
Main
identification
1990
Municipality
where I live
36,0 26,8
46,0
43,6 26,5
26,7
30,8
24,4
-16,8
-0,3
Region where
I live
13,3 15,9
8,5
12,4 37,6
17,3
12,0
13,1
3,5
21,7
Italy
36,0 43,6
36,1
24,5 27,1
47,2
46,4
43,5
19,1
-16,5
Europe/world 13,7 12,2
8,9
19,0
8,8
7,6
10,8
16,2
-6,8
-3,4
NR
1,0
1,5
0,5
0,5
0,0
1,3
0,0
2,8
1,0
-1,5
TOTAL
100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0
100,0 100,0
0,0
0,0
2001
Municipality
where I live
30,3 29,2
26,9
33,7 27,3
32,5
23,8
31,1
-4,5
-1,9
Region where
I live
11,0 11,5
6,4
13,2 30,7
9,8
10,7
11,8
-1,7
19,2
Italy
35,5 35,7
40,9
32,2 30,6
38,9
35,8
32,3
3,5
-5,1
Europe/world 21,7 22,2
24,7
19,3 11,4
17,7
28,9
22,4
2,9
-10,8
NR
1,4
1,4
1,2
1,6
0,0
1,2
0,8
2,5
-0,2
-1,4
TOTAL
100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0
100,0 100,0
0,0
0,0
2006
Municipality
where I live
27,6 27,7
21,8
30,6 29,8
32,5
24,5
26,8
-2,9
2,1
Region where
I live
13,0 13,3
7,1
15,8 31,0
12,5
11,1
13,9
-2,5
17,7
Italy
35,5 35,1
42,4
32,3 26,4
38,2
34,5
34,3
2,8
-8,7
Europe/world 21,8 22,6
26,5
18,2 12,8
16,6
29,6
21,8
4,4
-9,8
NR
2,1
1,2
2,2
3,1
0,0
0,3
0,2
3,2
-1,9
-1,2
TOTAL
100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0
100,0 100,0
0,0
0,0
Which were the effects of the political campaigns promoted by the Lega on
sentiments of territorial belonging? Two researches carried out in 2001 and 2006
demonstrate that no great changes occurred. In general, we registered a diminution of
localist identification, but the differences between the North and the South did not
increase. Sentiments of regionalist and localist belonging in northern Italy turned out to
be relatively less diffused than in the southern regions (see table 2). Of course, the Lega
voters were different because they shared to a greater extent the regional identification
and acknowledged the Lega’s role of expressing a particular territorial identification
(Cavazza and Corbetta, 2008). On the other hand, in 1998 we could already point out
how the Lega voters tended to separate local from national identification, unlike all the
180
other northern citizens (Biorcio, 1999:69). The researches carried out in the last ten years
prove how sentiments of belonging to Europe or to the entire world are much more
diffused among citizens of the North of Italy compared with the national average. Among
the electors of Lega, transnational belongings dropped at a definitely lower level than that
registered in the southern regions.
Even if the Lega Nord abandoned the idea of secession, and Padania stayed an
administrative entity with unclear borders, the weight of the Northern Question does not
seem to diminish within public opinion. In fact, we have pointed out an increasing
tendency in some parts of the population to acknowledge some importance to sentiments
of belonging to northern Italy (or to the North), beyond the specific localist or regionalist
belongings. It deals with an attitude that refers not only to the cultural and economic
differences between the North and the South, but points out also other themes and
contents. In 1996 belonging to northern Italy was recognized as a priority by about 5,3%
of the interviewees on a national scale, and by more than a tenth of the residents of the
northern regions (11%). The diffusion of this type of belonging has increased in the
following years, above all in the last years, parallel with the electoral outcomes of the
Lega Nord. In 2000 belonging to the North was declared by 9,3% of the interviewees on
a national scale4 and this increased up to 13,9 % in 2005, 18,1 % in 2006, reaching 22,7
% in 2008.5 This attitude does not only reflect a territorial belonging: belonging to the
North is also acknowledged by some residents of other regions. The reference to the
North includes at the same time a common belonging and a series of problems and
contents that were associated to it in the campaigns promoted by the Lega Nord. This
attitude is naturally largely spread within the Lega electorate, but it is also shared by
some sectors of the electorate of centre-right parties resident in the North, more tuned
with the proposals and the propaganda of Bossi’s party.
4. THE ADVANTAGES OF AUTONOMY AND DEVOLUTION
In the last twenty years, the opinions of the northern Italian population on federalism and
devolution have changed, but attitudes are often ambivalent and partially contradictory.
After the first electoral successes of the Lega Nord in the beginning of the nineties, the
demand for more regional autonomy progressively spread among voters of all parties. In
1991, a third of northern voters shared the claim for more regional autonomy. The
adhesion to the request for tax autonomy was even higher and was supported by half of
them (Biorcio, 1997:123). Above all traders, artisans and workers promoted this request
that obtained less support among the upper classes. The proposal to recruit teachers
regionally was backed by one out of four persons in northern Italy. This proposal was the
main goal of the campaign of the Lega Nord against the “colonial school” and it obtained
consensus in particular among electors of low cultural level.
During the nineties, the general claim for more autonomy for the North increased,
beyond the demands for autonomy for the single regions. It was a prospect the Lega had
promoted since 1990 with the proposal of the division of Italy into three large macroregions. The claim for autonomy was not only shared by almost all the Lega voters, but it
4
5
The data come from a Lapolis-Limes poll of February 2000.
Data were taken by different polls carried out by Demos, cf. Diamanti (2008).
181
gained plenty of support also among voters of other parties in the northern regions. The
invention of Padania, that many people considered groundless, had significantly
influenced public opinion (Albertazzi, 2006; Avanza, 2003). Only a small minority of
voters declared themselves for the independence project, but nearly a third of the northern
regions residents deemed this prospect advantageous (Diamanti, 1997).
The secessionist project had provoked, as we have seen, strong oppositions, and
therefore, in the end of the nineties, it was reduced to the more manageable form of
devolution (Loiero, 2003). The claim for regional autonomy, in any case, had acquired
relevance in the political agenda and in the public debate. The centre-left wing coalition
tried to recover support in the northern regions by offering a partial answer to the
problem. A proposal of reform of article V of the Constitution, that increased the powers
of regions was presented and voted in Parliament. The Lega Nord opposed the reform
considering it completely inadequate. Afterwards, the project was approved by the
constitutional referendum of 7 October 2001. The participation to the vote, nevertheless,
was very limited (34%): a clear mark of the weak capacity of mobilization of the reform
proposed by the centre-left, but also of the loss of relevance of the problem.
Still, the convergence of almost all parties on the prospect of federalist reforms
had influenced the orientations of public opinion. The favourable opinion to a generic
extension of regional autonomy had become almost unanimous mainly in northern Italy
(see table 3). The request to delegate the management of taxation to the regions was more
controversial: the proposal was supported by two thirds of northern regions residents, but
nearly half of the residents of other regions residents opposed it (cf. also Gangemi, in this
volume).
TAB. 3. Importance attributed to federal reform (2001) (%)
VOTE IN NORTHERN
ALL GEOGRAFIC ZONE
REGIONS
DIFFERENCE
Centre- Centre- Other- North- LegaNorth Centre South Lega
right
left
NR
South Nord
The Federal Reform of the State is a:
very important problem
26,2 29,4
17,5
26,8 66,0
33,4
21,0
28,5
2,6
36,6
quite important problem
33,4 36,5
31,1
30,7 23,4
41,1
36,5
32,5
5,8
-13,1
secondary
problem
28,7 25,2
35,1
29,6
8,4
19,4
34,6
24,7
-4,4
-16,8
don’t know
11,7
8,9
16,4
12,8
2,2
6,1
7,9
14,3
-3,9
-6,7
100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0
100,0 100,0
0,0
0,0
The Federal Reform of the State is the:
First/second
priority
0,9
1,5
0,6
0,3
10,4
1,8
0,6
0,8
1,2
8,9
However, the issue of a federal reform of the state was not considered very
important, especially if compared to other problems. In 2001 the federal reform was
judged a very important matter by little more than a fourth of voters, without many
differences between northern and southern residents (table 3). Anyway, this reform did
182
not represent one of the most important priorities: in northern Italy it was pointed out
among the two most important problems to be dealt with only by 1,5 % of the
interviewees. Support to federalism was of course much stronger within the electorate of
the Lega Nord. But, only one voter in every ten pointed out the federal reform among the
priorities. Other “problems” such as criminality, unemployment, immigrants and taxes
often appeared as more relevant to the electorate of the Lega Nord.
The general support of public opinion for an extension of powers and jurisdictions
of the regions did not seem enough for the development of specific mobilizations. In
order to put forward the proposals of a federalist reform, the Lega Nord employed above
all its weight within the centre-right coalition after the elections of 2001 (Biorcio, 2003b).
The realization of a constitutional federalist reform was set as an inalienable condition for
the alliance with Berlusconi. Therefore, in 2005 a constitutional reform was presented in
Parliament and approved by the parties of the Casa delle Libertà; it included a series of
rules oriented to devolution, in particular the increase of powers of regions on subjects
such as the school system, administrative police both regional and local, welfare and
health administration. Still, in public opinion, the support to the project introducing a
federalist reform was limited (see table 4). It was quite wider in the northern regions
compared to the southern, especially in the small towns and among the self-employed
workers. A strong support to the reform was expressed by the electorate of the Lega
Nord, but it was less spread among that of the other centre-right parties and, above all,
among the centre-left wing electorate (see table 4).
In the elections of 2006, the coalition led by Berlusconi obtained almost half of
the votes but, a few months later, the project of a constitutional reform was rejected by
referendum by a large majority. The participation of citizens to the vote was higher than
the previous referendum and it exceeded half of the electorate (52,3). But the defeat was
very clear: the reform proposal got little more than a third of the valid votes (38,7 %),
while a large majority had mobilized to reject it (61,3 %). Even within the northern
regions the reform was rejected. Only in Lombardy and Veneto the electorate approved
the introduction of devolution supported by the whole centre-right coalition.
In order to restart the process of federal reform, the Lega Nord, back in power
with Berlusconi in 2008, has tried to obtain political support even beyond the centre-right
alliance. So, on 5 May 2009, a bill for the introduction of fiscal federalism was approved
by the centre-right majority with the favourable vote of Italia dei Valori and the
abstention of the PD. The proposal, however, did not receive a great support from public
opinion. The expectation of positive effects is not much diffused (see table 4). Instead,
many doubts and uncertainties remain among the great majority of citizens. They do not
expect significant changes, fear negative effects or declare they do not have clear ideas on
the matter. Within the southern regions the diffusion of expectations of negative effects is
double compared to that of positive expectations. But, even in northern Italy, the
expectations of positive effects are clearly a majority only among the Lega voters.
Among those of other parties many people still do not have an opinion or do not expect
any changes.
The Lega Nord received much consent among that part of the electorate more
interested in devolution and, in general, in reconsidering tax transfers to the state and to
other regions. But it was unable to launch a larger movement on these matters, even if in
northern Italy the opinions favourable to an enlargement of regional autonomy, above all
related to the expectation of economic advantages, are really widespread.
183
TAB. 4. Assessments on Devolution and Fiscal Federalism (%)
VOTE IN NORTHERN
ALL GEOGRAFIC ZONE
REGIONS
DIFFERENCE
Centre- Centre- Other- North- LegaNorth Centre South Lega
right
left
NR
South Nord
Judgement on the reform introducing devolution
Very
favourable
15,6 22,4
10,5
9,7
70,5
37,7
12,0
12,7
12,7
48,1
Quite
favourable
32,0 35,6
35,8
25,3 25,9
46,7
32,5
30,5
10,3
-9,7
Opposed
35,9 28,4
40,2
43,2
2,4
9,1
48,5
27,1
-14,8 -26,0
Don’t know no answer
16,5 13,7
13,6
21,8
1,3
6,5
7,0
29,8
-8,1
-12,4
100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0
100,0 100,0
Consequences of the Law on Fiscal Federalism for your region:
Positive
31,8 44,5
28,4
14,5 62,4
42,1
23,7
21,2
30,0
17,9
Negative
15,9
7,3
11,2
32,2
5,9
12,9
24,5
12,3
-24,9
-1,4
Nothing will
change
36,9 31,5
43,3
40,7 22,4
32,7
40,5
40,5
-9,2
-9,1
Don’t know no answer
15,5 16,7
17,0
12,7
9,3
12,3
11,3
26,0
4,0
-7,4
100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0
100,0 100,0
5. IMMIGRANTS AND THE SECURITY EMERGENCY
In the elections of 2008, the votes for the Lega Nord almost doubled, returning to the
level of 1992, and approaching the result of 1996. Once again, support increased above
all among workers, confirming a trend not limited to northern Italy, but widespread all
over Europe whereby populist formations often succeed in substituting left parties as the
political representation of the popular electorate, and enlarge their support especially
among workers (Biorcio, 2009). The Lega Nord was also very successful at the European
elections in 2009 and in 2010 obtained the governors of the Veneto and Piedmont
Regions.
During the nineties, immigrants with residence permit doubled, passing from
649.000 in the end of 1991 to 1.341.000 in 2000. The increase has continued and become
more intense during the following decade. Even if the restrictions provided in the BossiFini law remain in force, the number of regular immigrants in the whole country tripled
in a few years, passing, according to the Istat estimates, from 1.356.590 at the end of
2001 to 4.330.000 in 2008 (see Figure 2). The number of immigrants over the population
reached 6,5 % in 2008 and 7,2 % in 2009, clearly exceeding the European average.
184
Figure 2 - Immigrants in Italy
5.000.000
4.500.000
Number of Immigrants inItaly
4.000.000
3.500.000
3.000.000
Immigrants
2.500.000
2.000.000
1.500.000
1.000.000
500.000
0
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
The growth of immigration and its visibility were considered by many people as a
menace since these phenomena were perceived as an invasion of social spaces and above
all because, as a series of opinion polls revealed, public opinion since 2005 increasingly
related them to concerns about the alleged increase of criminality. The mass perception of
the increase of immigration is strongly marked by the way mass media treat the problem.
The changes in behaviour of some actors (municipal councils, police, tribunals, security
committees), the ideas diffused by mass media and the social alarm for the problems
raised by the presence of non-European immigrants mutually reinforced changing
perceptions on immigration. This situation created new opportunities for the initiatives of
the Lega Nord, in building and managing a contentious relation between immigrants and
Italians (cf. Sacchetto, in this volume). The Lega Nord succeeded in showing itself as the
party most sensitive to the increasing claim for security that arises from the impact of
globalization on social life. These problems were also perceived in the regions of Emilia
and Liguria: territorial areas extraneous to the original areas of strength of the Lega Nord.
We can say that the Lega Nord anticipated the other parties – even the left-wing
parties – on the subject of the negative consequences that globalization causes within
local communities (Cousin and Vitale, 2007). For many years, Bossi’s party had
expressed itself in a very strong way against international and supranational institutions,
such as the European Union and the WTO. Today, “local communities” effectively suffer
from on-going economic and social processes and especially from the consequences of
globalization. The Lega Nord provides an answer to these problems by focalizing
hostility on immigrants and gipsies (Vitale and Claps, 2010), by promoting “patrols” to
defend the local population, and by proposing duties and barriers to restrain international
competition.
185
In this way, in 2008, the Lega Nord managed to regain support and to reintroduce
the battle for federalism by using changes in the social and political situation. The
propaganda of the Lega Nord redefined the uneasiness and popular insecurity by
establishing an explicative chain, at the same time causal, rational and metaphoric, to
connect immigrants, unemployment, criminality, welfare crisis, taxes and future
uncertainties. In this phase, Forza Italia and Alleanza Nazionale converged in a common
party, accentuating their “cartelization”, with a proposal of individualized and mediatized
political integration without participation and a reduction of the relations with interest
groups, and hence separating and distancing themselves from the territory (Diamanti,
2009:229). The strategy of the Lega Nord consisted in particular in insisting to build up,
by every possible means and through a participative rootedness within the territories, a
frame connected with the presumed negative practical consequences deriving from the
presence of immigrants: increase of criminality, unemployment, social degradation of the
most visible areas (as gardens and some public spaces), and diffusion of new infections.
The hostility against immigrants served to guarantee a popular consensus around the
Lega Nord, according to logics similar to those of other populist parties in Europe.
Researches carried out between 1996 and 2008 show how the importance given to
security and immigration problems in the northern regions is relatively higher than in the
southern regions (see table 5). Still, the two problems remain at a lower level than
employment, economic development and economic insecurity. Worries about the
presence of immigrants are in most European countries more diffused among the less
educated interviewees (see tables 6A and 6B). The electors of Lega Nord are
distinguishable by all the others because they point out much more frequently worries
about immigration and criminality.
TAB. 5. Importance given to issues of immigration and criminality (1996-2008) (%)
VOTE IN NORTHERN
ALL GEOGRAFIC ZONE REGIONS
DIFFERENCE
Centre- Centre- Other- North- LegaNorth Centre South Lega right
left
NR
South Nord
1996 Proposed as the first two priorities
Immigration
14,1 16,8
17,7
8,0 30,0
18,8
11,1
16,5
8,8
13,2
2001 Proposed as the first two priorities
Criminality
39,6 41,2
41,1 36,8 45,8
44,9
35,5
41,8
4,4
4,6
Immigration of
10,0
5,8 26,1
18,7
15,3
13,7
foreigners
11,5 16,5
10,7
9,6
2006 Problems considered very important
Criminality
72,6 71,3
76,7 72,0 77,0
74,4
64,8
74,9
-0,7
5,7
Immigration
58,1 59,7
66,2 51,7 76,2
66,4
50,1
61,1
8,0
16,5
2008 Problems spontaneously proposed as the most important
Security,
criminality,
public order
13,3 15,7
14,5
9,5 25,5
24,0
8,9
14,0
6,2
9,8
Immigration
4,9
6,9
3,3
3,3
9,2
11,1
2,0
7,8
3,6
2,3
Sources: Itanes 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008
186
TAB. 6A. Most Prominent Perceived Social Problems in Italian Northern Regions by
Educational Qualification (%)
LEGA
ALL
EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION
VOTERS
None/Primary Junior High
High
school
School
School University
1996
The First or the Second Priority:
Immigration
16,8
19,0
19,1
2001
The First or the Second Priority:
Crime
41,2
55,0
40,0
Immigration
16,5
15,2
18,5
2006
Issues Considered "Very Important":
Crime
71,3
75,6
76,7
Immigration
59,7
54,3
65,4
2008
Problems Spontaneously Proposed as the Most Important:
Security, Crime, Public
Order
15,7
13,8
16,6
Immigration
6,9
7,3
8,0
12,8
8,7
30,0
35,1
16,2
30,6
12,7
45,8
26,1
68,7
59,9
48,8
48,2
77,0
76,2
16,8
6,5
12,4
2,2
25,5
9,2
TAB. 6B. Most Prominent Perceived Social Problems in Italian Northern Regions by
Occupation (%)
ALL
OCCUPATION
EmploSelfManagers
yees
employed Workers
1996
The First or the Second Priority:
Immigration
16,8
14,1
11,5
12,3
2001
The First or the Second Priority:
Crime
41,2
38,4
36,4
41,5
Immigration
16,5
20,1
16,7
20,1
2006
Issues Considered "Very Important":
Crime
71,3
65,2
64,2
73,3
Immigration
59,7
54,2
57,5
62,1
2008
Problems Spontaneously Proposed as the Most Important:
Security, Crime,
Public Order
15,7
10,8
14,3
22,1
Immigration
6,9
2,7
4,8
10,3
Sources 6A and 6B: Itanes 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008
187
LEGA
VOTERS
Others
Not Employed
16,8
25,7
15,9
30,0
37,1
18,1
30,3
8,7
44,8
14,8
45,8
26,1
70,8
63,9
63,0
53,7
75,6
60,2
77,0
76,2
14,9
8,5
20,0
4,0
16,0
7,4
25,5
9,2
TAB. 7. Opinions on Immigrants and their Rights (2006 and 2008) (%)
GEOGRAFIC
VOTE IN NORTHERN
ALL ZONE
REGIONS
2006
Immigrants are dangerous
for our culture and identity
Immigrants are a threat to
employment
It ought to be forbidden to
gypsies to settle down in
our town
Regular immigrants should
have the right to vote in
administrative elections in
the town where they live
It is right to permit to
Muslims to built some
Mosques in Italian Country
2008
Immigrants are dangerous
for our culture
Immigrants are a threat for
employment
It is right to permit to
Muslims to built some
Mosques in Italian Country
Sources: Itanes 2006, 2008
Centreleft
OtherNR
NorthSouth
LegaNord
67,7
34,6
51,5
-4,3
27,7
66,1
57,9
31,4
42,8
-15,5
21,9
78,1
91,5
88,1
69,9
76,0
-0,1
13,5
70,3
62,0
23,5
53,9
75,4
55,1
-1,6
-36,9
31,7
45,4
32,0
18,7
24,1
44,3
26,3
-0,3
-13,0
38,3
39,0
33,7
39,9
57,5
55,4
19,7
40,1
-0,9
18,5
41,6
38,2
36,3
49,0
52,1
50,6
16,9
43,8
-10,8
13,9
36,1
34,1
38,1
37,7
13,0
24,0
57,0
28,0
-3,6
-21,1
North
Centre
South
Lega
52,6
51,4
49,4
55,7
79,1
50,1
44,2
46,8
59,7
78,8
78,0
81,7
62,9
60,4
34,4
Centreright
DIFFERENCE
At the same time, it is very noteworthy to observe how hostile opinions against
immigrants are relatively less diffused in the northern regions than in the southern (see
table 7). These positions, on the other hand, are much more diffused even in the northern
regions among the less educated interviewees and in general among workers, traders and
self-employed persons (see table 8). The opinions of the Lega voters on these matters
seem closer to the opinions present at a popular level in southern Italy.
As regards the massive increase of immigration and the perception of increasing
criminality, developed also thanks to moral panic waves on mass media (Maneri, 2001;
Palidda, 2009), the Lega Nord was perceived as the more coherent and combative
political party, capable of criticizing even Berlusconi when he admitted the possibility to
grant immigrants the right to vote for local elections (Cousin and Vitale, 2006). In the
northern regions, the Lega Nord could appear as the party that – in the centre-right ambit
– engaged itself more coherently and with more strength on such matters; this happened
thanks to a higher attention to the territory, to relationships with people within local
sections and to the role played by the network of elected mayors, in a phase in which
parties became presidential in order to de-link themselves from the territory (Diamanti,
188
2009:11)6. The capacity of Lega Nord to obtain support is, as a matter of fact, to be
understood not only considering the strategies engaged by the party leadership, but also
looking at the actions engaged by the Lega political class within the territories (territorial
branches, militants and administrators). One of the most noteworthy aspects of the Lega’s
political action concerns, in fact, the coherence between the instances promoted by the
party leadership and the priorities of administrative action of the Lega’s local political
representatives (cf. among others Andall, 2009; Cento, Bull, 2009). The different changes
of strategy of Lega Nord took place while keeping, in many localities of the North, a
strong capacity to mobilize its grass roots activists, well rooted in their own territory, and
able to translate instances and local problems into the language and priorities of the party
(Biorcio, 2010).
TAB. 8A. Opinions on Immigrants and their Rights (2006 and 2008) (%)
ALL
EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION
None/
Junior
Primary
High
High
Universchool
School
School sity
LEGA
VOTERS
2006
Immigrants are dangerous for our
culture and identity
Immigrants are a threat to
employment
It ought to be forbidden to gypsies
to settle down in our town
Regular immigrants should have the
right to vote in administrative
elections in the town where they live
It is right to permit to Muslims to
build Mosques in Italy
51,4
67,7
56,3
43,9
20,8
79,1
44,2
55,7
49,6
38,0
17,3
66,1
78,0
86,3
78,2
74,0
73,6
91,5
60,4
61,3
56,9
60,9
71,4
23,5
31,7
17,3
26,3
38,9
60,8
18,7
39,0
55,2
41,0
32,6
17,9
57,5
38,2
54,4
40,8
31,1
15,7
52,1
34,1
18,3
31,6
40,6
56,4
13,0
2008
Immigrants are dangerous for our
culture
Immigrants are a threat to
employment
It is right to permit to Muslims to
build Mosques in Italy
Sources: Itanes 2006, 2008
6
It is therefore not surprising that Bossi readily worked to obstacle the so-called mayors
movement that could constitute a transversal coalition of territorial political subjects,
alternative to the political project of the Lega Nord (cf. Jori, 2009)
189
TAB. 8B. Opinions on Immigrants and their Rights (2006 and 2008) (%)
ALL
Managers
OCCUPATION
Emplo- Self-em- Woryee
ployed
kers Others
LEGA
VOTERS
Not Employed
2006
Immigrants are
dangerous for our
culture and identity
Immigrants are a
threat to employment
It ought to be forbidden to gypsies to
settle down in our
town
Regular immigrants
should have the right
to vote in administrative elections in the
town where they live
It is right to permit to
Muslims to build
Mosques in Italy
51,4
32,8
40,4
56,3
51,1
44,0
57,8
79,1
44,2
26,3
33,2
46,0
52,2
47,8
47,8
66,1
78,0
80,4
78,1
71,3
76,6
84,0
79,0
91,5
60,4
55,1
61,4
51,7
54,8
76,0
63,3
23,5
31,7
52,2
41,0
36,0
31,0
39,6
24,7
18,7
39,0
24,7
29,8
35,3
44,9
37,0
42,2
57,5
38,2
16,9
31,8
25,0
49,0
44,4
40,4
52,1
34,1
44,2
41,1
26,5
31,8
48,1
31,8
13,0
2008
Immigrants are
dangerous for our
culture
Immigrants are a
threat to employment
It It is right to permit
to Muslims to build
Mosques in Italy
Sources: Itanes 2006, 2008
The Lega Nord is not characterized by a precise and fresh local government style,
or by distinctive modalities of regulation, in particular modalities of contrasting
particularism and patronage within the governance networks (policy network, networks
of political interchange, structures of influence of the élites) from one side, and in the
choices of allocation and distribution in public politics from the other. Nor is the party
particularly innovative, in the ability of attracting resources from Europe or from
enterprises, and concerning the presently most delicate challenges in northern Italy,
relative to the multilevel articulation of decisional processes (Berta, 2008) and to the
coordination between different cities in large areas, in a context of interurban competition
(Perulli and Pichierri, 2010).
If anything, the Lega Nord developed a political mobilization of its basis and top
administrators able to select the priorities of public action by focusing on symbolic
aspects that enable the party to obtain positive outcomes. These priorities, rather than
matters of local development or competition between territories; concern issues of law
190
and order, proprieties, care of open spaces that, once being defined as priorities, allow to
accumulate easy successes and to demonstrate a dynamic of incremental outcomes.
6. THE PARADOXES OF THE LEGA'S “NORTH-ISM”
The Lega Nord tried to offer to the northern regions a comprehensive political
representation that was not limited to the defence of economic interests. And, sometimes,
Bossi’s party managed to be acknowledged as an almost exclusive referent as regards the
Northern Question. Can the Lega Nord be considered the radical expression of cultural
trends spread in the North, different from those prevailing in the South? In order to
answer this question, it is necessary to analyze value trends and political attitudes of
citizens resident in the northern regions, by confronting them with those found in the
southern regions. It will then be possible to display the specificities that the Lega’s
electorate presents compared to trends and values of the northern regions.
To deal with these problems, we used the techniques elaborated and proposed by
the psychologist Shalom Schwartz who has researched peoples’ values in more than sixty
countries of different continents.7 The analysis on the Italian value trends reveals some
clearly differentiated tendencies between northern and southern regions, but also between
Lega followers and those of other parties in northern Italy (see table 9). As regards some
values such as security and conformism (respect for rules and respect for the conventions
of “good manners”) the answers of the Lega voters seem to reinforce the differences
between trends prevailing in the northern regions and those which characterize the
southern regions. In this case, the Lega Nord voters stress the tendencies that more
strongly characterize the North compared to the other parts of Italy. Lega voters, on the
contrary, definitely differentiate from the trends prevailing in the northern regions for
other values such as universalism and benevolence, much more spread among northern
citizens than among southerners. Universalism synthesizes tolerance for different ideas
and people, and the will to give everybody the same opportunities in life; benevolence
shows the availability to respond to the others’ needs and to help people around us. It
deals with values that, in general, are less shared by less educated people. We can further
observe how among the Lega Nord electorate the value of traditionalism is very
accentuated: a trend that does not present great differences between northern and
southern regions, but it is much more shared by small provincial centres residents and, in
general, by the less educated interviewees (see tables 10A and 10B).
7
Schwartz identified ten types of basis values that people of all cultures recognize as
more or less important targets of their life (Schwartz, 1992; 1994; 2006). His research
concerns values that have been defined as universal both because acknowledged by
people from very different cultures and societies, and because they are based on some
fundamental human needs, such as that of controlling reality around us or establishing
relationships with other people.
191
TAB. 9. Value-orientation (2006) (%)
ALL
Security
Conformism
Tradition
Selfdetermination
Universalism
Benevolence
GEOGRAFIC ZONE
VOTE IN NORTHERN
REGIONS
All
69,8
51,9
38,3
North
72,1
53,3
38,0
Centre
77,9
59,3
44,6
South
63,7
47,1
35,8
Lega
83,3
70,0
45,8
Centreright
75,6
57,5
45,6
43,4
41,8
34,6
47,5
45,2
36,4
47,7
47,0
39,5
37,2
35,8
30,5
47,4
39,5
29,8
49,4
40,8
34,1
DIFFERENCE
Centreleft
69,9
50,8
32,0
OtherNR
65,5
43,9
34,3
NorthSouth
8,4
6,2
2,2
LegaNord
11,2
16,7
7,8
48,4
54,7
42,5
41,7
32,8
28,8
10,3
9,4
5,9
-0,1
-5,7
-6,6
Source: Itanes 2006
TAB. 10A Basis Values in Italian Northern Regions by Educational Qualification (%)
LEGA
ALL
EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION
VOTERS
None/Primary Junior High
High
school
School
School University
Security
72,1
77,5
73,4
66,9
74,8
83,3
Conformism
53,3
58,2
57,1
45,3
57,3
70,0
Tradition
38,0
49,7
41,2
29,6
31,5
45,8
Self-determination
47,5
40,5
44,6
50,3
63,7
47,4
Universalism
45,2
32,3
42,6
50,0
64,3
39,5
Benevolence
36,4
35,0
37,3
34,3
43,8
29,8
Source: Itanes 2006
TAB. 10B. Basis Values in Italian Northern Regions by Occupation (%)
ALL
Security
Conformism
Tradition
Selfdetermination
Universalism
Benevolence
LEGA
VOTERS
OCCUPATION
72,1
53,3
38,0
Managers
72,0
64,3
40,6
Employee
70,7
46,8
29,4
SelfEmployed
73,6
55,7
43,6
Workers
69,8
49,3
36,6
Others
68,7
41,4
42,0
Not
Employed
73,3
56,3
40,5
83,3
70,0
45,8
47,5
45,2
36,4
58,7
62,9
53,0
50,4
52,6
38,9
61,4
41,3
29,5
46,7
41,2
30,1
52,3
49,8
43,9
42,5
41,2
35,8
47,4
39,5
29,8
Source: Itanes 2006
Confirming these trends, researches carried out in 2006 and 2008 show other
interesting aspects of the profile of the Lega’s electorate. We examine four areas of
attitudes which are very important to orient political and social behaviours: interpersonal
confidence, demand for authority, civil rights and neo-liberal economic politics.
192
Interpersonal confidence is considered one of the fundamental conditions for the
development of the public spirit of a community (Putnam et al., 1993).8 More recent
researches substantiate the historical difference as regards the level of interpersonal
confidence, between northern and southern regions (Inglehart, 1993:35) (see table 11). It
is interesting to notice that, concerning this attitude, Lega voters appear more similar to
the inhabitants of the southern regions. The level of distrust towards the others that
characterize the Lega voters can be found within the northern regions only among people
of a very low cultural level (see table 12).
TAB. 11. Opinions and Social Attitudes (2006 and 2008) (%)
GEOGRAFIC
VOTE IN NORTHERN
ALL ZONE
REGIONS
Interpersonal Trust
You can trust most of the
other people
You ought to be cautious in
dealing with the people
Individual Rights
Extend rights of married
couples to couples who
decide to have a stable
relationship without marrying
Extend rights of married
couples also to homosexual
couples
Abortion has to be restricted
Demand of Authority
Today in Italy we need a
strong leader
Death penalty for worst
crimes
Neo-Liberalism
Enterprises ought to have
more freedom to hire and fire
Unions' power is too high
Government ought to
intervene less in economy
Income divide between rich
and poor has to decrease
Sources: Itanes 2006, 2008
DIFFERENCE
North
Centre
South
Lega
Centreright
Centreleft
OtherNR
NorthSouth
LegaNord
17,8
20,3
19,2
13,8
13,7
18,8
30,6
15,2
6,5
-6,6
79,3
76,6
77,6
83,6
84,2
79,3
64,7
82,1
-7,0
7,6
66,1
70,6
70,0
58,0
65,8
56,8
88,1
66,2
12,6
-4,8
34,3
34,9
39,5
30,8
38,4
29,8
25,2
43,0
28,8
41,8
28,0
45,8
61,4
14,4
32,2
32,4
14,3
-12,2
-10,7
11,0
75,7
74,7
74,3
77,8
93,2
90,0
56,7
75,4
-3,1
18,5
42,2
39,1
37,0
49,0
56,1
50,8
24,2
42,9
-9,9
17,0
41,1
42,6
42,8
42,0
40,2
44,8
39,5
42,0
62,3
68,4
59,4
67,5
27,1
21,6
40,7
38,1
3,3
0,0
19,5
26,4
31,9
34,1
28,0
31,1
37,0
36,2
30,6
34,9
3,0
2,9
79,0
76,8
84,6
78,7
59,7
70,1
81,0
80,9
-1,9
-17,1
8
The presence of public spirit is based on a set of conditions that refer both to structural
aspects (relationships networks), and to cultural aspects (rules, social values and
interpersonal confidence) that characterize a community (Putnam et al., 1993:196). The
different aspects are related, and it is difficult to establish which one is prior to the others
in causal terms, cf. Almond and Verba (1980). The point, all the same, is really delicate,
with important political repercussions, as is argued, among others, by Sabetti (2002: ch.
9) and Huysseune (2002).
193
TAB. 12A. Opinions and Social Attitudes in Italian Northern Regions by Educational
Qualification (2006) (%)
LEGA
ALL EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION VOTERS
None/
Junior
Primary High
High
Universchool
School School sity
Interpersonal Trust
You can trust most of the other people
You ought to be cautious in dealing
with the people
Individual Rights
Extend rights of married couples to
couples who decide to have a stable
relationship without marrying
Extend rights of married couples also
to homosexual couples
Abortion has to be restricted
Demand of Authority
Today in Italy we need a strong leader
Death penalty for worst crimes
Neo-Liberalism
Enterprises ought to have more
freedom to hire and fire
Unions' power is too high
Government ought to intervene less in
economy
Income divide between rich and poor
has to decrease
20,3
14,1
17,4
24,9
32,9
13,7
76,6
83,4
79,4
72,9
61,4
84,2
70,6
61,8
72,0
72,3
75,7
65,8
39,5
30,8
14,5
44,4
43,5
29,6
42,6
26,0
57,1
25,0
28,8
41,8
74,7
39,1
78,8
51,2
77,7
41,9
72,6
34,3
59,3
17,3
93,2
56,1
42,8
42,0
36,9
42,4
44,4
40,0
44,3
44,2
41,4
41,8
62,3
68,4
34,1
28,2
34,3
37,4
35,0
37,0
76,8
81,4
80,3
73,8
62,5
59,7
Sources: Itanes 2006, 2008
A similar outline characterizes opinions on individual civil rights. In the northern
regions there is a more open attitude towards these matters compared with the southern: a
greater disposition in favour of laws that recognize rights to common-law and
homosexual couples; a lesser availability towards more restrictive measures for abortion.
On these problems, the positions of Lega voters tend to be similar to those expressed by
residents of the southern regions and, above all, correspond to the opinions of older and
less educated people.
We can also find similar differences in the quest for authority, which is usually
related to a demand for more severity in punishment. These opinions are less diffused
within the northern regions than within the southern. In the northern regions, in fact, the
idea of death penalty for the most serious crimes and the claim for authority expressed
with the demand for a “strong leader” are definitely less spread. On these matters, the
trend of Lega voters comes closer (accentuating them) to the most widespread position of
southern Italy and reflects, once more, the prevailing opinions within the less educated
popular sectors.
194
TAB. 12B. Opinions and Social Attitudes in Italian Northern Regions by Occupation (2006)
(%)
LEGA
ALL
OCCUPATION
VOTERS
Mana- Emplo- Self-emWorNot Emgers
yee
ployed
kers Others ployed
Interpersonal Trust
You can trust most of
the other people
You ought to be
cautious in dealing
with the people
Individual Rights
Extend rights of
married couples to
couples who decide
to have a stable
relationship without
marrying
Extend rights of
married couples also
to homosexual
couples
Abortion has to be
restricted
Demand of
Authority
Today in Italy we
need a strong leader
Death penalty for
worst crimes
Neo-Liberalism
Enterprises ought to
have more freedom to
hire and fire
Unions' power is too
high
Government ought to
intervene less in
economy
Income divide
between rich and
poor has to decrease
20,3
23,4
23,3
16,2
16,7
18,5
20,4
13,7
76,6
70,1
73,6
77,9
80,3
81,5
77,0
84,2
70,6
76,6
75,6
75,0
77,8
77,8
66,1
65,8
39,5
46,8
54,3
48,5
48,5
51,9
30,3
28,8
30,8
20,8
21,7
22,1
28,3
29,6
36,2
41,8
74,7
66,2
74,4
75,0
80,8
85,2
73,3
93,2
39,1
29,9
28,3
47,3
50,9
44,3
39,4
56,1
42,8
59,7
35,7
61,8
39,4
59,3
41,8
62,3
42,0
58,9
36,4
63,8
38,2
23,7
40,9
68,4
34,1
37,7
33,7
45,6
35,4
29,6
32,2
37,0
76,8
65,4
72,4
74,3
81,0
56,1
79,7
59,7
Sources: Itanes 2006, 2008
We can, finally, observe how the Lega Nord voters are characterized by a strong
support for economic liberalism. Within the northern regions Lega voters differentiate
themselves by a much stronger support to claims for reducing the power of unions and to
extend the enterprises’ freedom of dismissal. The support to policies directed towards the
reduction of social disparities is much more limited compared to the rest of the electorate.
The Lega Nord intended to create a party which represented the whole of the
northern regions, capable to defend their interests and culture. If we examine the profile
195
of people that voted for the Lega Nord, we find some discordant features compared to the
project. A large majority of the party’s electorate naturally supports federalism and
devolution. However, the party’s electorate paradoxically displays value trends and
convictions that, for many aspects are in countertendency compared to the population of
northern Italy, and much closer to those of the southern electorate.
The relationship between the Lega Nord and northern society remains ambivalent
and the party is unable to represent the whole of value instances that its citizens consider
most important. Bossi’s party gave only partly expression to the dominant ideas and
values in northern Italy. This would seem a quite strange paradox for a regionalist party
born to draw attention to the Northern Question. This paradox is all interior to political
dynamics, where actors interact in a complex way, considering the context in which they
are included, that binds them, but does not determine them: far from being the expression
of a homogeneous territory as regards culture and values, the Lega Nord is a particular
political actor that builds its own identity by selecting themes and questions to represent.
On the other hand, the North presents some very noteworthy interior differences
both in territorial and socio-cultural terms; even if in the last years some converging
dynamics are emerging around the medium enterprise model with long networks
(Bagnasco, 2009; Perulli and Pichierri, 2010). As Michel Huysseune reminds in the
beginning of this volume, centrifugal regionalism reveals deep conflicts not only between
territories, but also and above all, within the same regional territory, of the same
“regional culture”, showing this way the value heterogeneity internal to every territory.
The Lega was able to intercept and mobilize a specific type of electorate – present above
all in particular territorial contexts and within the popular and less educated sectors of the
population – that on the point of view of values, of public spirit and of social attitudes, is
distinguishable from the prevailing trends within the northern population and resembles
the most diffused ones in the South. The Lega Nord was able to obtain support especially
in these areas, by reinforcing fears, prejudices and some specific value trends of its
inhabitants. By acting in such way, however, it progressively mobilized around a number
of political matters quite distinctive from the territorial ones, engaging itself rather in the
defence of identity and national frontiers.
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THE EMBEDDING OF RADICAL RIGHT PARTIES IN LOCAL NETWORKS:
AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY AT THE NEIGHBOURHOOD LEVEL IN
ANTWERP (FLANDERS)
Lien Warmenbol
University of Antwerp, Department of Political Sciences
1. INTRODUCTION
The last few decades, a lot of pages have been spent describing or explaining the success
of populist radical right parties. The main focus in this research has been the demand
side, which is the voters’ side of the story (Carter, 2005; Mudde, 2007). As far as the
scope of these studies is concerned, most of them take place at the macro level which is
formed by a society, for example comparing the parties’ successes in several countries
(e.g. Perrineau, 2002; Schain, Zolberg et al., 2002). Another level that has been worked
on quite often is the micro level, namely researching individual voters (e.g. van der Brug
and Fennema, 2003; Dülmer and Klein, 2005). All in all, it appears that two pieces of the
explanations are missing: at the one hand, the supply side of explanations, namely the
political context and party behaviour; on the other hand, the “in-between” level i.e. the
meso level: how to explain regional, local or even sub-local differences in the success of
these parties?
What we aim with this paper is exactly to uncover the combination of these two:
the supply side at the meso level. We ask ourselves how we can explain local success of a
populist radical right party focusing on the political context of this entity. The case
studied in practice is a district in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. The Flemish party
“Vlaams Belang” (Flemish Interest) has had its traditional base in the city of Antwerp
since the 1980’s, and currently commands around 33% of the votes. The city has been
divided into nine districts, which are partly governed by district councils (for some fields
of authority). In one of the districts under study, Deurne, the percentage of VB votes was
even higher at the last local elections, namely 43.5% of the votes. We selected two
neighbourhoods within this district in order to look for some sublocal differences, while
keeping the political context constant. In the other studied district, Berchem, the party
gained 25.7% of the votes, i.e. below the city average.
What we will do in this paper is firstly situate the considerations made in order to
define the research question, based on previous research. After sketching the methods and
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case selection, we will describe as detailed as possible the results of the qualitative
analysis. After that, we will draw conclusions in the form of preliminary hypotheses.
2. POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE
Explanations for the electoral success of radical right parties can be divided horizontally
as well as vertically. Vertically the demand and supply side can be discerned, focusing
upon voting behaviour and political factors respectively. Horizontally, explanations can
be divided into three levels of aggregation, namely micro, meso and macro. Whereas the
micro level refers to individual attitudes, behaviour and characteristics and the macro
level to elements of society or the political system, the meso level falls in between these
two, referring to social and political processes at the regional or local level.
The meso level contains all explanations between, roughly, individual voting
behaviour and general societal changes. In contrast to the macro level, the meso level is
not based on national means or theoretical-philosophical descriptions of the evolution of
society, which ignore the existence of regional variation. Contrary to micro-level data, the
meso level transcends individual demographical characteristics, socio-economical
situations, and attitudes. The meso level focuses on (social) settings like the
neighbourhood, city or region. It therefore allows investigations of, for example, social
networks or local political contexts. The demand side studies at the meso level, on which
we will not elaborate in this study, seek to find explanations for the variation in the area’s
or its inhabitants’ characteristics. Factors such as the number of immigrants or
unemployed are traditionally used in this kind of studies, and in addition for example a
neighbourhood’s criminal rate. These phenomena have been studied by a range of
authors, but hardly any scientific consensus could be reached (e.g. Andersen and Evans,
2003; Jesuit and Mahler, 2004; Coffé, 2005; Dülmer and Klein, 2005).
The supply side of political factors in explaining radical right’s success has been
understudied. Although several authors have highlighted the importance of the “political
opportunity structure”, and have stressed the explanatory power it possesses, the studies
within the field are limited (Schain et al., 2002; Carter, 2005; Mudde, 2007). Moreover
most of these studies are situated at the micro or macro level. Micro level supply side
studies focus at specific party characteristics, such as charismatic leadership or party
organization. The macro level comprises elements of the party system, electoral system
or institutional system of a country. Studies at the meso level apply micro and macro
factors to a certain area, city or neighbourhood, and add certain specific meso-level
factors. This implies that the distinction between levels is artificial to a certain extent, and
that they are intertwined. We will give an overview of the literature situated at the meso
level only, bearing in mind that there are a lot of authors dealing with both micro and the
macro level.
The explanations for meso-level success of radical right parties can be considered
comparable to those for other parties’ success. In this way, we can rely on literature on
local politics in general. Here we highlight the explanations specific to radical right
parties. We can make a distinction between two important, often stressed factors in the
local political context, which can make or break the success of a radical right party. The
first is related to the position of the other (traditional) parties in the regional or local
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council. The other is the network of local organizations woven around the radical right
party.
As far as the political context formed by the other parties is concerned, the most
discussed element is clientelism and the traditional “village politics”. The idea is
twofold: in places where the traditional parties historically made use of systems of
clientelism or patronage but now have let it go, or in places where they are put in a bad
daylight because of scandals, the radical right has more chances to break through or
strengthen its position. The clientelistic system was common in a lot of countries with a
strong political division of societal institutions like education, health care or housing; for
example in Italy, France or Austria (Kitschelt and McGann, 1995; Mény and Surel,
2002). This implied a highly developed system of clientelism at all levels, in which party
members could get advantages and help from the party in these institutions. Citizens had
to be party members to reach certain goals, and politicians therefore could rely on a
steady basis.
Since this system has begun to break down and the emphasis moved more to state
power, traditional parties began to lose contact with the citizens as a result. The citizens
themselves felt left alone and began to become more and more alienated from politics in
general. This left an empty hole for protest parties, of which radical right or populist
parties were most successful (Blöss et al., 1999; Swyngedouw, 2000). This process was
felt even stronger at the meso level, since the contact between politicians and citizens is a
local phenomenon par excellence. For example Viard (1998) sketches this decline of the
clientelistic system in a few French cities where the Front National came in power of the
local council. Another aspect of this traditional “village politics” is the issue of corruption
or other scandals. Related to this issue is the mere longstanding presence of the same
party in the local majority, a so called oligopoly that can cause a protest reaction,
sometimes embodied by a radical right party (Swyngedouw, 1998; Veugelers and
Magnan, 2005). But, of course, the opposite is also true: where traditional parties are
successful, in keeping contact with the citizens, the radical right has fewer chances. (e.g.
Swyngedouw, 2000; Faniel, 2001)
Another aspect of the political context that other parties create, is their
fragmentation. This could play a role not only at the macro but also at the meso level,
since the supply of political parties often differs between these levels. It seems that
radical right parties benefit from a politically fragmented context. At least, some studies
show that radical right parties are more likely to contest elections in municipalities with a
large number of parties (e.g. Coffé et al., 2007). But also the fragmentation in the radical
right party family itself can be of importance. When the party is divided in different
camps that lead their own life, or if new radical right competitors appear in the
neighbourhood, its success will decline (e.g. Laurent and Perrineau, 1999; Lubbers et al.,
2000). A clear example of this phenomenon is offered by the situation in the two main
regions of Belgium, Flanders and Wallonia. In the former the radical right party Vlaams
Belang is very strong and its organization very well developed. In Wallonia, several
smaller radical right parties contested elections, but none of them was very successful
over a longer period of time (Alaluf, 1998; Faniel, 2001; Coffé, 2005). This is due to the
internal organization of the parties and their leaders, but also to the historical presence in
Flanders of ideologically close associations and organizations, as we will discuss.
As far as the second factor is concerned, i.e. the network of local organizations as
an element of the political context, several kinds of organizations are considered of great
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importance. First and foremost, the historical presence of concordant organizations in a
certain area can play a major role in the radical right party’s success (Mudde and Van
Holsteyn, 2000; Klandermans and Mayer, 2005). Again, the comparison between
Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium is illustrative. While Flanders has a history of
collaboration and nationalistic organizations following the First and Second World War,
Wallonia more or less lacks this basis (Alaluf, 1998; Faniel, 2001; Hossay, 2002; Coffé,
2005). But not only traditional networks are useful in increasing the party success. In
some cases, radical right parties are not ostracized and find contact with new
organizations or social movements quite openly (van den Brink 1999; Van Craen and
Swyngedouw, 2002). There are some examples of radical right parties which have
connections with existing (unpillarized) organizations without any political purpose. The
BNP in Oldham for example could rely on the “Fine Young Casuals” football club in its
protest against violence by ethnic minorities in the town (Eatwell, 2004).
Secondly, the degree up to which candidates are known within the local civil
society or the relations they keep with members of the civil society is seen as a major
element in the explanations. Caused by the already discussed decline of clientelism and
village politics, the relation between local politician and civil society has also
experienced a breakdown. Depillarization and the consequent downfall of a traditional
rank-and-file have had a great impact at the local level too. Especially in the cities that
have experienced a population increase over the last few decennia, the contact between
citizens and local politicians is only a fraction of what is was (Swyngedouw, 1998).
Thijssen and De Lange’s (2005) study on preferential voting shows that the familiarity
with local candidates can play a larger role than has been assumed up until now. Alidières
(2006) emphasizes the difference that a locally well-embedded radical right party activist
can make in electoral support. Although this aspect is understudied, it seems that both for
traditional parties as for radical right parties embedding in the local social life (still) is
important.
3. METHODS AND CASE SELECTION
We conducted ethnographic case studies in one of the largest cities of Belgium, Antwerp.
The city counts 500 000 inhabitants and is divided into 9 districts. These districts are
partly governed by the city council, and partly by a directly elected district council.
Vlaams Belang was founded in this city, experienced its first successes here, and
traditionally scores very well in Antwerp. We conducted an exit-poll in 18
neighbourhoods spread over seven districts in October 2006, at the last local elections.
Within one district, Deurne, we selected two demographically comparable
neighbourhoods, which had totally different scores for Vlaams Belang in the exit-poll. In
general, Deurne was one of the districts with the highest VB scores, namely 43.5%. In the
central neighbourhood of this district, Deurne-Centre, VB scored very well with 41.8% of
the votes.1 In the southern neighbourhood, Deurne-South, the party “only” gained 26% of
the votes. In this way, we could exclude explanations at the demand side which are based
on demographic analyses, and instead focus on some other demand-side factors and, even
1
This is an underestimation of the real score VB must have gained in the neighbourhood,
due to the social undesirability of the answer in the exit-poll.
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more so, on supply-side factors.2 By choosing two neighbourhoods within the same
district, we could keep the political factors constant. In addition, we chose another
neighbourhood within a district where VB achieves its lowest score in the city, namely
Old-Berchem in the district of Berchem. The party had an average score of only 25.7%,
and based on the exit-poll in this specific neighbourhood only 13.9% of the population
supported it. This case is still under study at the time so this paper will elaborate more on
the first two.
Ethnographically based fieldwork was conducted in all three neighbourhoods. At
the voters’ side, we had conversations and in-depth interviews with local shopkeepers,
inhabitants, and key informants from all kinds of organizations and associations:
neighbourhood associations, parochial associations, social organizations, and action
committees. We observed informal and formal social interaction within both the public
space and these organizations. At the political side, we conducted in-depth interviews
with district council members from all parties. We also observed district council meetings
and party meetings. The results from the analysis that follow below, are based on both
these interviews and observation reports.
3.1 DEURNE
We will now sketch the selected cases, beginning with the two neighbourhoods in the
district of Deurne. Deurne is a district at the east side of Antwerp that counts 70 000
inhabitants. The independent municipality merged with other municipalities into the city
of Antwerp in 1983. This merger was very important for its further development. Since
the implementation of Universal Male Suffrage in 1919, which emancipated manual
workers politically, the socialist BWP (Belgische Werkliedenpartij/ Belgian Workers
Party) made its breakthrough in Deurne. Already in 1926 the party gained more votes
than the “Katholieke Volksbond” (Catholic Peoples Party) which had been in power up
until then. In 1938 the party gained the absolute majority, which it would keep until 1976.
Only the socialist and Catholic party would play a role of importance in Deurne until
1964. At that moment the nationalistic Frontpartij/Volksunie (Front Party/ Peoples
Union) gained 13% of the votes out of the blue, and grew to 18% in 1976. Deurne thus
went into the merger with a large deal of Flemish-nationalistic inhabitants (Nooyens,
1982).
In the meanwhile, the socialist party (now SP) was able to elaborate its
organization in Deurne thanks to the successive election victories and stable majorities.
The party set up a whole network of associations and organizations like sport clubs,
theatre associations and orchestras, which were very loyal to the party. Furthermore, the
SP and therefore the whole of Deurne, was led by a remarkable mayor, Maurice
Dequeecker. He ruled the municipality with an iron fist between 1954 and 1982, but was
a “man of the people” at the same time. He was a charismatic populist leader who often
met with ordinary people and was the incarnation of socialist social support. Dequeecker
2
Although not discussed here, the original study devotes quite some attention to demandside factors such as the infrastructure and the use of the public space, the function of the
main shopping street, the reach and impact of several local associations and the
interethnic relationships in the neighbourhood.
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had a great influence until his retirement in 1982, which came with the merger of (Great-)
Antwerp. The municipal council was abolished and full authority was transfered to the
central city council of Antwerp. The district council, which was constructed right after
the merger to still keep a connection with the population, had only an advisory authority.
This council was not directly elected and had no decision power.
In the meanwhile, Dequeecker’s person could not be fully replaced by the
technocrat Mangelschots. The SP started to lose contact with its voters, partly because of
the merger but also because of the “depillarization” that fully developed in those years.
The membership of the party and the related associations started going down and led to
the slow implosion of the “red bastion” Deurne for so many years had been (Nooyens,
1982). The SP still gained 44.7% of the votes in 1976, but had fallen back to 18.2% in the
first directly elected district councils, in 2000. That means a loss of more than half of its
electorate in 25 years. It is no coincidence that Vlaams Blok (Flemish Block)3 started to
grow in the same period. Still, one can not simply conclude that there is a direct link
between the losses of SP and the gains of VB. Deurne counted a relatively large Flemishnationalistic base too; this party also lost its strong position. Hence, all parties, but the SP
in the first place, lost votes to the VB. The latter climbed from 5.2% in 1982 to 17.7% in
1988 in Antwerp as a whole (the district councils were not elected directly at the time). In
1994 VB even got 28% of the Antwerp votes.
In 2000 the district councils got decisive power over a number of fields of
authority (see below). They are now directly elected to “bring the politics back to the
citizens”. In these elections VB in Deurne gains its highest score ever and the highest in
Belgium: 38% (compared to 33% in Antwerp as a whole). Due to the “cordon sanitaire”4
which was implemented by the traditional parties in 1989, VB never shared power. In
2006 the party was even able to extend its support to 43.5% of the votes in Deurne,
comparable to the socialist vote share in the merger year.
3.2 BERCHEM
Berchem has a totally different history which can also be reflected in the current political
situation in the district. It is located east of the city centre, but closer to it than Deurne.
The old village centre of Berchem is even included in the part of Antwerp that lies within
the area that is demarcated by the city highway. The other two main neighbourhoods of
the district are located outside that ring and are relatively new. Politically speaking, both
the socialists and the Catholics have been influential in the municipality’s history. The
two parties have mainly governed together for the last few decades. The liberals as well
as the Flemish-nationalists have always had a great deal of support as well, which
explains the smaller success of the socialists in comparison to other Antwerp districts
(Nicolaï, 1988). The town has been populated by a very diverse public, including a fair
share of members of the petite bourgeoisie. Unlike in Deurne, the socialists were never
3
The original name of Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) is Vlaams Blok (Flemish
Block); the party had to change its name due to a trial for racism it was involved in.
4
The term refers to the agreement the traditional parties made after the breakthrough of
VB not to form in any case a coalition with the party. Consequently, the party is doomed
to be in the opposition unless it gains an absolute majority.
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able to build a vast network of political associations, as there was no real working class
community.
There are no data available on the voting behaviour in the district separately for
the city council elections. So, the evolution sketched above applies to Berchem as well
probably: VB grows enormously and eats away voters from all different parties. Fact is
that VB gets 25.5% of the votes in the first direct district councils elections in 2000. Also
remarkable are the high scores of the liberal party (22.4%) and the greens (16.4%). Both
the socialists and the Catholics, the parties that had governed the independent
municipality were decimated to less than 15%. Interestingly, Berchem was one of the few
districts where the growth of VB stagnated in 2006. Even more remarkable is the fact that
the SP more than doubled its score (from 13.7% to 28.8%). As will be discussed below,
the district mayor, who is a socialist, is of importance in this evolution. Certainly, part of
the increase can be explained by the popularity of the SP at the city level too. The
Catholics go up as well, while the liberals and greens see their scores decrease (although
they remain quite high compared to other districts). The district is now governed by the
socialists, Catholics and liberals. VB and the greens are in the opposition.
4. RESULTS: LOCAL POLITICIANS AND LOCAL NETWORKS
In this part we will discuss the actual results that came out of the analysis. Constantly
comparing VB and the other parties, we will elaborate on certain aspects of social and
political networks and relationships in the two districts. We will first look at the personal
networks politicians keep with inhabitants and organizations. Secondly, the role of
connections between individual citizens and politicians will become clear. Finally, we
focus on the communication of politicians or institutions to citizens, and the special place
campaign efforts take in this.
4.1 PERSONAL NETWORKS
We first look at personal networks representatives are in. We will investigate whether the
representatives are fully embedded in local social life or maintain networks with citizens
in another way; whether this is a factor of success for the candidates and what the
differences are between the parties. As far as personal networks as a success factor are
concerned, almost all informants agree that they are important in the explanation of a
candidate’s success in local elections. A candidate who is totally not embedded in the
social life, or only knows a few people from other networks, will not be easily elected in
a local election, is the line of reasoning. This image is differentiated by a number of
informants, who stress the importance of campaigns and media. Following the same line
of reasoning, some people (including members of VB itself) remark that VB does not
need this embeddings to be successful anyway. One informant tells about his personal
experiences with embedding:
So I am more and more known by now, by people who ask me: “we want
this and that, and can you help me?”. That happens once a week, but I am
not planning to use that electorally by saying: “hey I helped you then, do
207
you remember, think of me”. I am not like that. Maybe I am not a good
politician, but I don’t believe in that. Those people, if I have good
relationships with them, they have to decide for themselves whether I am
worth voting for or not. And, in the end, an election result is maybe partly
influenced by such elements, but it is mostly dependent upon the total
atmosphere. First of all: who are you as a person, as a man? They have to
decide whether that is good or bad. But most of all: how is my party doing
in the public opinion in general? (Politician 2)
In line with the implosion of the socialist associations there are only few SP.Arepresentatives5 that have a personal relation with several ‘red’ associations. Some of
them are members of a sport club or neighbourhood committee, and in these cases it
seems to be a successful way to pick up problems, on the one hand, and to translate that
network electorally on the other. The same goes for the Christian-Democrat party, where
the relations with the Christian (parochial) associations are not as close as they once
were, but people who maintain this tie, seem to get elected easier. Representatives of the
green and liberal parties can not rely on traditional rank-and-file through associations, but
seek their connection to citizens through personal contacts or their position as an
alderman. A representative tells:
Yes, of course, everybody knows my telephone number and address too.
And also, we have a very well functioning branch with a lot of mutual
contacts. For example, we have two people that have joined the sports
council, who are active in a sports association in Sint Ruggeveld, and they
often come up with problems that exist there. Moreover, I personally keep
contact with all the neighbourhood associations; I am one of the few in the
district council who attends the meetings between the police and the
neighbourhood associations in Deurne-North, where all these problems are
discussed. Frankly, I don’t need any association to do that. You know, the
signals come in other ways than that. (Politician 6)
The communist party Partij van de Arbeid (PVDA/ Labour Party) is not included
in the coalition, and is the only other opposition party next to VB. The party gains very
few votes in general; they gained a first seat in Deurne in 2006. The results from the exitpoll indicate that this is almost totally thanks to the support in Deurne-South, where the
party has its own doctor’s practice, which offers free health care for disadvantaged
inhabitants. The PVDA thus can rely on these potential voters, but also actively works
with them to know what lives in this group. Members of the doctor’s practice make their
political convictions clear, and even conducted a survey in which they investigated the
inhabitants’ priorities in certain problems or issues. For this party, the patients are the
main source of information but also the group they can partly rely on at election time.
Furthermore, the party members are very active organizing actions and being members of
neighbourhood committees.
5
SP-A stands for Socialistische Partij Anders (Socialist Party Different), the new name of
the social democrats.
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As we turn to the embedding of VB’s representatives, the situation gets a little
paradoxical. On the one hand, the representatives are often banned from traditional
associations at the moment their party affiliation gets known. However, this is only in
principle, since in reality they are often welcome in organizations or at least keep good
contacts with certain members of these associations. Here, the case of the director and
secretary from the largest Christian-Democrat organization in Deurne, the ACW, is most
important. These two men left the Christian-Democrats, first to join the Flemish
nationalist N-VA and later the radical right party, VB. Consequently, they lost their
position in the ACW, which had an enormous impact on the association and also on the
Christian-Democrats. Not only did some of the members follow their director and
secretary, but this also happened in the year before the 2006 local elections. Both men
were and are well embedded in the traditional Christian social life and they still maintain
these relations while being elected on a VB-list. In their own words:
I still know quite a lot of people of the religious community, and if there is
a problem they still will come to me. There still is a certain bond that
stems from the past but is still alive, and I always receive the necessary
feedback. It is not like, yes the official relationship has been broken, but a
number of people that I helped in the past, for whom I brought up a
problem, they still come to me. Even like, I love orchestra music, and the
people from the socialistic orchestra still ask me certain things, and always
ask: “would the party support that?”. And then, as far as possible, it will be
supported, that is no problem for me. (Politician 8)
On the other hand, the VB-branch in Deurne as a whole is strongly focused at
maintaining networks with citizens. One way is the “community centre” (see below),
another way is making contact with organizations and associations of all kind, most of
them not traditionally related to another party. Specifically, this includes neighbourhood
or street associations, local action committees, but also sport clubs. Furthermore, VB
seems to organize spontaneous protests in streets or neighbourhoods. These issues of
protest do not only involve ‘traditional’ radical-right issues like the building of a mosque
or the installation of a Muslim school, but also other issues like the renewal of a street or
the installation of a new tramway. The question is how this process works: does the party
itself, or its members, seek out the protests, or is it the other way around? Do VBrepresentatives find spontaneous support when they seek contact with some active
citizens because almost half of the population votes for them anyway? Are VBrepresentatives more active in seeking and bringing to the fore issues they encounter as a
neighbour or as an association member? Or do citizens find their way to VBrepresentatives or the community centre on their own? In Deurne of course the position
of VB as the only main opposition plays a role in this issue.
In Deurne there are several examples of the close interaction between local protest
committees and VB. The largest action committee has been gathered around the building
of a new complex in Deurne-South, Eksterlaar. The committee exists of a small board of
four men, but can count 2 000 households to its rank and file. The committee has the
reputation of being close to VB, especially among other politicians. It is remarkable that
VB is the party in the district council that often brings the case into the attention and
often has a lot of new information that other parties (and so the councillors) don’t have.
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Upon closer inspection, it seems that there are no direct links between the board and
members of the party at all, although it is not unthinkable that several members of the
association support VB. Furthermore, it seems that some parties benefit from pushing the
committee into the VB-corner, to stigmatize it. A member explains:
Local officer X has accused us some time ago, I think obviously in the
direction of Vlaams Belang, he said: “those action committees, and he
named Eksterlaar, you never know who is behind them.” (…) It is not
known to us that VB would support it, we don’t know if VB is supporting
it. The only thing we know is, because we attended the city council for the
first time since the approval of the road planning, that VB has held indeed
an interpellation about the topic to our big surprise. But we say: where
does their information come from? That was a lady, how she had this
information, we don’t know. Of course, there are issues that we discuss in
the board of directors with four people but do not talk about with even our
other members, because it is too discreet. But there are other issues that we
discuss in the larger meeting with the inhabitants of the Dascottelei,
because we have to inform our rank-and-file. You can’t go around that,
issues are being discussed. So it could well be that there are VB-members
among them, we can’t rule that out. And even when there are no VBmembers, but if there is one who tells his neighbour, and this neighbour
picks up his telephone and starts making phone calls: “that has been
discussed, and that.” (Member of association 9)
In this case some VB members or representatives living in the neighbourhood
supposedly picked up the information from the action committee to give it to the VBcommittee. The links between the action committee and the party at the protest action
against the reopening of an open air swimming pool where there had been some issues
with immigrant youth, also in Deurne-South, were comparable. Some VB-representative
lived in a neighbouring street and led the local street protest and kept it alive up until the
elections. These are two examples of how members let information through to the top.
There are also some cases in which probably the action group did not count any VBmembers, but approached the party to find support. This was the case for example when
the AA (Anonymous Alcoholics)-club would have to move because of the renewal
project. Although the processes are hard to disentangle, is it possible that the movement
first starts in some cases at the party itself. For example, when it became known that the
tram would be extended to another street, the party spread notes in the mail boxes of the
street involved. This was probably also the case with the protest that the party led against
the moving of a mosque in Deurne-South. A VB representative explains:
No, no, no, you should see it like this: a number of our members see this
strange yellow poster hanging there, and they come to us: “we have a
problem!”. And then we say: we can lead that neighbourhood protest as a
party, but we say: “no, you are the neighbourhood inhabitant, go around
with a petition”. Because when we would do that, everyone would say “it
is politically loaded”. Because there could as well be another party that
says: “we are in favour”. We then try to say: no, that is something from the
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neighbourhood, go around with a petition, they organized a petition against
the coming of the mosque at that spot as well. The same goes for the
kitchen-gardens, the people then come to us, yes but: 2you have to group
yourselves a bit, and let your voice be heard in the debate”. (…) There are
a few members in these groupings, but as these groups grow larger, you
see that… For example, I saw members of the CVP [Christian-Democrat
party] there, and others who were members of the VB and for me the
essence is: they are being confronted with a problem. That problem does
not always have to be politicized. (Politician 8)
In Berchem, the picture is completely different. All informants do agree that being
embedded in local networks is necessary to be elected. Especially being known by one’s
own neighbours and being a member of neighbourhood committees or parish
organizations is considered important. Still, like in Deurne, informants have their doubts
about that being the only influential factor, pointing at political evolutions at the city or
regional level, taking into account media effects as well. That said, informants in
Berchem are generally more convinced that personal networks do matter.
The socialist party is led by the over-active district mayor who makes it a case of
honour to be known in all local networks in his neighbourhood. He spends all his time
building up networks, visiting neighbourhood committees, and being involved in all local
issues. Another representative of the party was elected on the basis of his engagement in
a neighbourhood committee as well. Still, the party can only modestly rely on socialist
networks and had to (re)build everything from their low score in 2000. So we should say
that some members of the party succeed in this task, but others do not and probably got
elected on another basis. As a party, the Catholics have more of a traditional rank-and-file
in Berchem. Mainly through parish organizations their representatives are known to a part
of the population. The liberal and green parties do not have many traditional networks to
rely on, but do deem it important to be embedded in, or at least come in contact with, the
local networks.
As far as VB is concerned, the picture is a bit mixed. The party is led by a popular
figure who is very known in his own neighbourhood. He was the leader of a
neighbourhood committee concerned about security issues before he was elected. He still
is very much embedded in his own neighbourhood and the committees there. But he is
the only one in his party, which has been inactive for years, until it was partly renewed
during the electoral campaign in 2006. The improvement in political personnel also
meant an improvement in the efforts to build networks with neighbourhood committees
or unorganized neighbours of the same street. Comparable to the actions in Deurne, VB
in Berchem is now starting to maintain contacts with people from action committees or
organizing protest. For example, in a street where a Muslim school would be located, VB
mailed flyers and organized the protest. But this is only very recent, so the electoral
benefits can not be discerned yet.
4.2 CONTACT WITH CITIZENS
There are several ways in which the district government and the opposition parties come
into contact with Deurne’s inhabitants. As far as the governing parties are concerned,
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there are some first-line services citizens can contact in case of problems. These are most
notably the neighbourhood supervisors and the local police officers, who cross the
neighbourhoods by bike or foot. These services are embedded in meetings with other
services, in which they pass the issues on to other authorized second-line services.
Citizens are also able to fill in so-called declaration cards to send their complaints to the
council. Also, once a month inhabitants can ask questions or report problems to
representatives at the “question hour”. Moreover, sometimes meetings are organized for
inhabitants of a specific neighbourhood in which they can communicate with the
councillors. A difference can be made between “information meetings” at which the
citizens are informed about a reconstruction in their street, “hearing sessions” at which
their opinion is asked about this reconstruction, and “neighbourhood fora” at which they
can share their concerns with the councillors. Recently there have also been some
separate meetings for communication between citizens and the police services. There are
quite a lot of possible channels, but some informants deem these not sufficient or not
sufficiently known or effective. It is also remarkable that often the same active
inhabitants make use of these channels, also called “professional complainers”, who most
often represent a committee or at least a group of other people. Many other inhabitants
are not reached through these institutionalized channels though. A politician explains:
Giving the people some say, we see that with hearings as well, it’s
participation that people want. When there are plans for the rearrangement
of a street, they are clarified to the neighbourhood’s inhabitants; they come
and can give their comments, in case they can be taken into account, I
think that is an important thing. Maybe we should do that in an earlier
stage, that is only one of my thoughts. I think there are always
neighbourhoods, like the Unitas neighbourhood, where a good
neighbourhood committee is at work, with the best intents for their
neighbourhood. And then I think: maybe we should talk to these people
first, before we are really planning: “we are going to do something about
the neighbourhood or your street, how do you see that?”. The danger is, as
more experienced politicians say, that there are a lot of people who only
look at their own front door: “I want some trees but not in front of my
house”. And that makes it difficult to talk, but on the other side: maybe
there will come up ideas that you don’t think of yourself, because you
don’t live there. (Politician 1)
Furthermore, members of several governing parties keep up contacts with the
population in another, more informal way. Some of them, like representatives of the
SP.A, have consultation hours. Members of other parties point to the possibility to have
direct contact with their party’s councillors. They often refer to VB’s methods, like the
opening of their community centre. Most of them recognize its success, but don’t see it as
an option for their own party. Others have recently invented an easy accessible way of
coming into contact, by organizing a consultation hour in popular bars:
What I do with X, well not only with X but also with other party officials,
is that we sit in a bar every two weeks, where we put up a poster that says:
“We listen to you from this to that hour”, and then we sit there with a
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number of representatives where people can come with their questions.
(…) It is only embryonic; we did it only three times. There are three
different bars, every two weeks on a Saturday. (…) I don’t know whether
it is going to help, but I think that the people feel or know: “they are
listening to us”, and not only that one party that ever stirs up the
complaints. Because I can imagine that when someone says: “my street is
dirty, and full of weeds”, they say “yeah, all these weeds, and everywhere,
and they don’t do anything about it!”. That will probably be the case,
whereas they say to me “a lot of weeds”, then I explain “yes there has been
a problem in summer with the weed, we are working on it, it will be done
by next summer”. We shouldn’t say: “that’s not true what you say”, but
yes, just tell the truth. (Politician 6)
Vlaams Belang as a permanent opposition party organizes its contacts with the
citizen not through institutionalized channels. As mentioned earlier, the party has a lot of
contacts with people from unpillarized associations. But it has canalized the contacts with
unassociated citizens in the permanent opening of their community centre. Every
weekday people can enter the centre to simply have a drink, ask their questions to the
ever present representatives or to seek help with the treatment of their problems. In
addition to volunteers, every day some representatives are present to take care of the
visitors’ complaints. As far as the kind of questions that are being asked are concerned,
these are for the main part complaints that need to be addressed by the district council,
but that citizens find too complicated to ask on their own. One could say that in the
tradition of the socialist “political assistance”, these community centre workers not only
help inhabitants to fill in declaration cards, but also by passing them on to the right
authority. Since the party never has been part of the majority, the help they can offer in
reality is probably quite limited. But at least VB has the image of being easily accessible
and helpful in case of complaints. The party itself attaches a great meaning to this
communication channel, if only by mobilizing the volunteers to keep the centre open.
This is something other parties also notice:
No, but they have a community centre at the Turnhoutsebaan, and I am
convinced that there is a whole bunch of people walking in there, and they
have a concrete point of contact, right. You can walk in there and tell your
thing. I think, there are two people from the ACW over there; they will
have their tentacles to find out about things. A number of those people
work somewhere at a ministry cabinet, and they have some more time. I
have a full time teaching job, so I don’t have the time to visit bars during
the day or open a community centre where people can come and speak to
me. (Politician 3)
In Berchem, the situation also differs in this respect. First of all, all representatives
share the idea that they should listen to what ordinary people have to say. So, in Berchem
there are a lot of hearings, neighbourhood fora, and other opportunities where people can
come into contact with the councillors. All aldermen take their presence on these
opportunities serious, unlike in Deurne. But other representatives see the importance of
being present on these events as well, both members of the coalition and members of the
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opposition. Remarkably, this idea has a long tradition in Berchem and some even call it
“the Berchem model”, pointing to the early initiatives to bring together all actors of a
neighbourhood in meetings, and communicating to the inhabitants since the late 1990’s.
VB does not have a community centre in Berchem and is still developing its networking
functions, but is very open to the population as well. The means are rather limited
however, as their website is not actively used, and they do not have a central point like a
secretary. But they are very active themselves to establish contact with the people. Of
course, since they experience competition from other parties in this field, the results are
not comparable to those in Deurne.
4.3 COMMUNICATION
In all described contact channels, like the neighbourhood meetings, the responses to the
declaration cards and the answers the neighbourhood supervisors give to complaints, the
way the communication to the citizen takes place is of high importance, according to the
informants. The district council has a difficult position because its authority is limited and
it depends on higher authorities for a lot of issues. That makes communication more
difficult, because the solution process is slower and some –even very local- problems
cannot be solved. Still, informants are of the opinion that clear communication and
feedback should take place, even when the problem can not be solved. Apparently, up to
now complaints have too often starved away without any feedback.
The communication process is not only dependent upon the politicians but also on
the citizens themselves. According to several informants, the inhabitants’ mentality is an
important factor in the communication process. When inhabitants have a more negative
point of view, or expect to get a quick solution, the communication between both parties
will be more difficult. Several informants indicate that there is a clear difference in
mentality between Deurne-South and Deurne-Centre/North. Although this is partly
explained by the fact that the last has to deal with more and larger problems, some remark
that inhabitants in neighbourhood meetings in Deurne-South cooperate more
constructively, instead of simply reacting against the councillors. In the observations of
the neighbourhood meetings the number of participants was remarkably different in the
two neighbourhoods: not even 10 inhabitants in the Centre, whereas the meeting in South
attracted more than 40 people.
Yes in Deurne-South people are more constructive, they are more able to
have meetings. Yes, it is just those inhabitants’ mentality, you can feel it in
the neighbourhood associations, they really want to come to a
neighbourhood meeting to have a debate, with us and with the politicians
in particular. But they will hardly be rude or start shouting, or sabotage the
meeting. I once attended a meeting in Deurne-North, which we just had to
interrupt a few years ago. (Politician 10)
Of further interest are the campaign strategies and the role of (local) media. The
most important issue that informants bring to the fore is the discrepancy between the
governing parties and the opposition parties. Whereas the first only invest in campaigning
during the month previous to an election, the communist and radical right party do so all
214
year long. In general members of governing parties give the impression of not being very
involved in the campaigns, or question their value. They rather stress the role of media
that can counteract campaign effects through negative announcements. Media seem to
play a major role, even at the local level, although several politicians complain about the
little media attention they receive and the fact that only major negative issues are
reported.
So it is more a general discourse that is being received well, and you know
they also work a lot with paper right: they mail their magazine a few times
a week. But it is not only dealing with Deurne, there are a few pages in on
Deurne. But also, when there is a problem somewhere, they will spread a
leaflet in the surrounding mailboxes. Usually it is protest, usually not with
a positive aim, and then they post that in the mailboxes. And they do that
regularly, and other parties do that less. It happens, but less. (…) They
have to try to attract the attention; you will not appear that much in
newspapers right, and certainly not on television. So, that is not a simple
thing. You have to rely on contacts and that is not that easy. (Politician 5)
5. CONCLUSION
We first ascertained that there is a lack of literature on the local and regional successes of
radical right parties. Through this ethnographic comparative case study we found some
concepts and processes to work with in the future, which can be applied to several
contexts. It seems that not only the efforts of populist radical right parties themselves, but
even more the image and role of the traditional parties are of great importance. We
believe these elements to be part of the explanation for populist radical right’s success at
the local level, although we would have to compare with still other cases and elaborate
the factors on the demand side as well. Another question is related to causality: does this
embedding and the efforts cause VB’s electoral success or is it the other way around?
And finally: there are several cases in which VB is not active but yet very successful:
how can we account for this?
As far as Vlaams Belang is concerned, it became clear that the party is well
organized at the local level in the case of Deurne, in the sense that it has an elaborate
network of contacts. The main characteristics of its approach are openness and activity.
The party officials and members are actively and constantly looking for contact with both
individual citizens and associations. This element is most prominent in its contacts with
neighbourhood associations and action committees, but also in, for example, its campaign
methods (i.e. the whole year long) and its briefings in “protest areas”. The openness is
mainly mirrored in the establishment of the community centre, where every citizen can
make use of the low-level services. And even when this might not really be true in reality,
the party gives at least the impression to be close to the ordinary people and willing to
help them with their personal and public issues.
The other parties in Deurne, except for the communist PVDA, which uses mainly
the same strategies, are nearly completely the opposite in both reality and perception.
This is most tangible in the social democrat party, since it dominated Deurne for a long
time and developed an extensive network of associations. Omnipresent as this party once
215
was, so all-absent it is now. In the first place, the party has not managed to build a new
associational rank-and-file which it lost in the last few decades. This applies less to the
Christian-democrat party, which can still partly rely on its traditional parochial
associations. And second, as coalition members, these parties do not seem to have found
a good way to approach and inform citizens, and to deal with their questions and issues.
These findings are conversely confirmed by the case of Berchem. The open and
active mentality among the different parties and the efforts some representatives from the
majority make to become embedded in the local networks, can explain at least in part the
relatively high scores of the socialists, Catholics and liberals. VB suffered and still suffers
from this, and was inactive and incapable to do the same thing for a long time. This was
reflected in their relatively low scores throughout the years, and the stagnation of their
growth in 2006. The current efforts in both the fields of networking and communication
could be rewarded in the next local elections, but that is still unsure. The Berchem case
stresses the role the traditional parties play: VB does not necessarily have to be active,
but when the other parties are not, VB will have more chances to be successful,
regardless of their own efforts.
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THE NORTHERN LEAGUE (ITALY)
A PARTY OF ACTIVISTS IN THE MIDST OF A PARTISAN MILITANCY
CRISIS
Martina Avanza
Université de Lausanne, Institut d'Etudes Politiques et Internationales, CRAPUL
1. INTRODUCTION
In more or less radical terms, the following observation is today almost unanimous:
militancy is facing crisis (Ion, 1997). This diagnosis is particularly severe when it
comes to partisan militancy, which is now the most discredited form of political
commitment (Dalton and Wattenberg, 2000; Katz and Mair, 1993). Of course, Italy is
not hit as hard as other countries by the rejection by potential members of one of the
most traditional forms of political participation, which is party membership and
partisan militancy (Ignazi et al. 2010; Raniolo, 2002). Yet, whilst the parties remain
more dynamic than in other European countries, the number of members has
considerably decreased since the golden age of the mass parties, such as the
Communist Party and the Christian Democracy of the 1950s and 1960s (Biorcio,
2003; della Porta, 2001). In this national and international context, very rapidly
summarized here, the Northern League comes out as an exception. Despite numerous
changes of its political line (the League switched from being autonomist, to federalist,
to secessionist, to devolutionist and is now again requesting a federation) and
apparently opaque alliance strategies (first allied with, then the enemy of, and again
allied with Berlusconi), the League has managed to establish and maintain a breeding
ground for active and devoted card carriers. In fact, the organization of the League
does not rely on the existence of a small group of professionals, but depends largely
on the participation and mobilization of its members (Biorcio, 1997; Diamanti, 2003;
Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro, 2002). Hence, the party proposes what can be called an
ideal-type militancy based on total commitment; the same as was previously
incarnated by the Communist Party, and which is the exact opposite of the
individualized and distanced types of participation, believed to be compatible with
what members today are ready to give to an organization (Ion et al., 2005). Despite
this demanding form of support, the party manages to recruit an important
membership. It has been able to recruit a considerable number of young people1,
whilst parties are generally not attractive organizations for this age category (Muxel
and Cacouault, 2001). This recruitment success is difficult to measure, since the party
1
Partly due to a sizeable and dynamic youth movement. On this topic, see
Dechezelles, 2006.
219
has published contradictory figures regarding the number of its members.2 But beyond
these unverifiable statistics, it only takes walking along the corridors of the party’s
headquarters, sections and associations, counting the number of celebrations the party
organizes every summer, or even wandering through the cities of the pre-alpine area
(which is the League stronghold) to witness the activist vitality of the party. In this
region, the League members are by far the most visible: every inhabitant has, at some
point, been approached by a leguist activist for a distribution of leaflets, has faced a
bridge tagged Padania libera in giant letters (Padania being the nation which should
have been created following the independence of the North, demanded by the League,
between 1995 and 1999), has probably met a nocturnal patrol organized by the party
to protest against immigration, and has certainly come across a leguist demonstration.
The party activists, recognizable by their green shirts (green being the color of the
party) and the padanian flags hovering over their stalls, are therefore a strong social
presence. By contrast, to come across members from Forza Italia, the most important
party of the North, outside election periods, is more than unlikely. As far as the leftwing parties are concerned, they are poorly represented in this region, especially
outside urban areas. The Catholics are very active in associative networks linked to
the Church, but have no existence as party members.
A more quantifiable data can also show the strength of the militant
mobilization: the League is the only Italian party that does not obtain the majority of
its revenues from state subsidies but from private donations and political activities
specially finalized for fundraising (Ignazi et al., 2010). This article ambitions not only
to report on the attachment that link the activists to the League, but also to unveil the
partisan strategies aiming at maintaining these affinities; thus understanding the
essence of the League’s success.
The empirical data mobilized for this demonstrations were collected during a
long-term field investigation amongst some of the most active members, who
themselves describe their commitment as “absolute”. All of them deeply attached to
the idea of Padania, saw their loyalty under harsh trial with the League’s sudden shift
of 2000, forsaking the idea of secession in order to link up with Berlusconi (which the
League until then considered as the head of a “mafia” party) in view of the 2001
Legislative Elections. My fieldwork was carried out during this precise moment of the
party’s history, between 1999 and 2002, when activists were roaring against what they
termed as treachery, thinking that the League had “sold its soul to Berlusconi” in
order to recover power. This context of crisis proved to be particularly relevant for
conducting an investigation on the links between activists and the party.
In reference to Albert Hirschmann’s categories (Hirschmann, 1970), voice was
never an option in this organization, as expulsing anyone opposing the party’s
founding father, and indisputable leader, Umberto Bossi’s directions is common
2
During my fieldwork (1999-2002), the League counted between 110.000 and
180.000 members, depending how partisan the estimations are. Comparing these
figures with those of contemporary parties, the League appears clearly as a party of
activists, especially in front of the other new right wing party, Forza Italia. Of course
there are larger parties. The DS, inheritors of the PCI, and AN, inheritor of the neofascist MSI, had over 500.000 members in 2002. But the leguist membership must be
weighed against the fact that, unlike other parties, the League is not implanted on the
whole national territory: its followers almost all belong to Lombardy and Veneto, and
the party is marginally present in the Piedmont, Friuli, and more recently in EmiliaRomagna.
220
practice, and internal political currents are inexistent, if not unthinkable. The members
who were disappointed with forgoing the “padanist dream” were faced with only two
alternatives: exit or loyalty. The identity crisis context of the Party enables to
understand the reasons why some have chosen to stay (the great majority) while
others (far less in number) left. It sheds light on what ties the activists to their Party,
but also on the strategies deployed by the latter to preserve this link and prevent exit
from becoming the massive response to the membership’s unrest.
2. THE PADANISTS “UNIVERSE” 3
My field study took place within a network of activists which belongs to the partisan
milieu, but do not entirely coincide with it. It is the “padanist universe”, to adopt the
indigenous terminology, which includes the leguists (from the basic activist to the
Parliamentarian, but in great majority made up of simple members) who do not
conceive the League as a political Party aiming at obtaining power, but as a “national
liberation movement” with the main purpose of obtaining the political
acknowledgement of Padania. These activists refer to the organization as a
“movement”, never as a “party”.
The fact that the padanist network does not coincide entirely with the party
appeared clearly to me when the League stopped, in 1999, supporting the idea of
independence. Those in favour of independence mobilized themselves as such. As a
sign of (passive) protest against the alliance with Silvio Berlusconi, most of them did
not participate in the legislative electoral campaign of 2001, while still supporting the
padanist network. Some of them, while still card carriers, did not vote for the League
in 2001, at least not for the majority ballot.4
The padanist members consider themselves as a sub-group within the party.
For example, the European parliamentarian Mario Borghezio5, a convinced
secessionist, declared during an official gathering of the (virtual) Padanian Parliament
which I attended in 2000: “we, the padan patriots, are more free than the Party is,
even if we remain loyal to it”. Similarly, an activist of one of the League ancillary
organization called Young Padania, characterized his commitment to me in the
following terms: “there is the padanist, whose vision of the movement is first and
foremost based on ethnicity and identity. And there are those who leave those aspects
aside to emphasize a socio-economic discourse, the struggle against taxes, and these
3
My PhD thesis (Avanza, 2002) was dedicated to the comprehension of this
“universe”.
4
The votes were conducted under a “mixed” ballot, whereby 75% would be elected
with a majority ballot, and 25% by proportionality. For the majority ballot, electors
had to vote for a coalition (which did not feature the League’s symbol separately, but
had a symbol of its own), as opposed to the proportional ballot which featured
individual parties and symbols.
5
Born in 1943, bachelor and without children, Mario Borghezio used to be a lawyer
before living off politics as a Deputy (1992-2001), and a European Parliamentarian
(since 2001). He joined the party in 1989 after a long period of militancy within far
right groups. Not only does he represent the most extremist and xenophobic wing of
the party, but he is also the politician most active on the ground and thus the most
popular with padanian activists.
221
kinds of things”.6 Not only can this sub-group be defined ideologically (identity
claims versus economic ones), or organizationally (movement versus party), but also
in terms of relationships: the padanists knew each other, would spend time together or
organize common actions. Thus, Andrea7 (one of my “main informers”), replying to
my question regarding the composition of the jury for a poetry contest the party
organized, said: “oh, you know, there will be Roberto, Archimède, Mariella, you see,
always the same people, always from the padanist circle”.8
Charles Tilly identified two variables that define the internal sociability of
organizations (Tilly, 1978). The netness (from net, or network) refers to a voluntary
social network. Social agents are the architects of these forms of sociability which are
established according to elective logics. For example, an organization based on
voluntary association is exemplary of this type of social ties, all the more so that it
bears substantial consequences on several aspects of daily life. By opposition, the
catness (idiom forged from the word category) defines categorical identities to which
individual are assigned according to objective properties which are not chosen by
them (to be a woman), and attributes linked to professional occupation (to be a
worker). When the two domains of sociability are combined into catnet (catness +
netness), the converging social links become very solid. According to Tilly, a group is
all the better organized to defend what it considers to be its interests, when its catnet
is strong.
If those categories were to be applied to padanism, netness stands out to be
very relevant: the strongly mobilized padanists are connected with one another, and
their belonging to the movement has strong influence over their lives.9 Adversely,
catness is weak: the movement brings together very different people in terms of class,
age, or even political sympathies (combining the extreme left or extreme right,
moderate Catholics and, for the most part, people who have little, if any, political
background). The padanists seem to be very much aware of the fact that they are
linked by elective rather than “objective” binds; reason for which they claim to be
padanists (their link is militant, therefore voluntary), and not Padans (which refers to a
pre-existing cultural group). Here, and explicitly, “it is the political communal activity
that produces the community” (Weber, 1971:421), and not the other way around. It is
precisely this catness deficit that led us to investigate what motivates the voluntary
sociability that structures the “padanist universe”. This will be analyzed from the
bottom, basing the demonstration on individual activist trajectories, but also from the
top by looking at the leguist organizational features.
6
Interview with Lorenzo, Milan, November 2000. Lorenzo, Milanese, was a law
student, 20 at the time and activist of the League since High School. Simple card
carrier, he had close sympathies with Mario Borghezio.
7
Fifty years old at the time of my fieldwork, bachelor, no children, professor of
literature in Junior High School, Andrea was a very active member and an important
figure of the (very scattered) group of intellectuals of the party. He had joined the
party since its creation in 1984 because of his interest for issues around regionalism.
Notably, he voluntarily presided the Culture Commission of the party and a cultural
ancillary organization, as well as animated radio programs.
8
Field notes, December 2000.
9
This includes their tastes (they would for instance start to listen to dialectal music)
or their free time (they no longer go on vacation to Rimini, one of the most popular
seaside resorts, but rather to Scotland in order to come closer to what their party
claims to be their Celtic origins).
222
2.1. A DOUBLE-LAYERED ORGANIZATION, OR HOW TO CONSTRUCT A
“NICHE” AGAINST DISENGAGEMENT
Maintaining its active and generous (in term of financial donations) militant base is a
central stake for the party. But how to maintain members, who have been radicalized
and socialized to unconventional modes of mobilization, when at the same time
preparing to govern the country? We will describe here which organizational features
has prevented massive defection from the “hard core” members. It is by reasoning in
terms of organizational fields that one can understand the unequal capacities of
organizations to attract, retain and gain the loyalty of their sympathizers (Sawicki and
Siméant, 2009).
The leguist activism, made of voluntary participation, associative life, party
celebrations, radicalized mass rituals (secessionist and xenophobic), goes beyond
conventional partisan militancy which is usually reduced to electoral mobilization and
section meetings, when they take place. The activist League, focused on mobilization
and protest10, which resembles more a social movement than a political party, is in
indigenous terms named the “Battle League”. But it is coupled with the “Government
League”, made of elected representatives and capable of influencing political
decisions, including at national level. By managing cohabitation within the same
structure of these two levels, the League cumulates the advantages of a radical and
marginal party (capable of mobilizing activists), and those of a governmental party
(acceding to power and associated resources, but with poor mobilization capacity).
The present article will show how this double-layered partisan organization functions,
being able to keep its activist (most of them against Berlusconi and considering the
League as natural opposition party) while being part of a governmental coalition of
which Silvio Berlusconi is the Prime Minister.
When transforming itself from a federalist party to a “national liberation”
movement, the League underwent significant organizational modifications. The
conventional activities of the political party, essentially made of putting posters on the
walls and meetings, did not fit the aims that the League fixed for itself since 1995.
While pursuing the independence of a Nation that no one claims, the League needed
to put in place new structures in which padanist proselytism could grow. These
resources were essentially of three types. The party first developed partisan media
structures (daily and weekly press, radio television and websites) defending
independence. It then started materializing the existence of Padania by investing
places through fictive institutions, such as the Government and Parliament of Padania,
and mass rituals (such as the anniversary “declaration of independence of Padania”,
which was self-proclaimed by the League in 1996, taking place every year in Venice
and where thousands of members gather). Finally, it has supported the creation of a
myriad of ancillary organizations in charge of developing partisan sociability, of
“defending the territory” (for the “patriotic” organizations responsible for organizing
surveillance patrols against immigration) and to produce the “national culture”: padan
poetry contests, rewriting history, promoting local dialects, etc. Most of my
10
The party specialized itself is choc actions, such as the “Declaration of
Independence of Padania” in 1996, a demonstration called “the walk over Rome” in
1999, or making pigs urinate on a plot alloted for the construction of a mosque.
223
observations were conducted regarding these three organizational levels, and
especially within ancillary organizations.
The League did not benefit from pre-existing networks of organizations that
would have facilitated its implantation in the social fabric, as was the case for
Christian Democracy after the war, which was supported by catholic organizations
and the structures of the Church. The pre-alpine area did host autonomist
organizations, but without the necessary means to support the leguist growth (unlike
environmental associations, born in the 1980s, from which Italy’s Green Party was
born). As Ilvo Diamanti demonstrated (Diamanti, 1993), leguism saw the light in an
environment hostile to commitment dissociating partisans and social links. Previous
to partisan commitment, sociabilities were scattered. Those members who were
engaged in associative activities individually transferred their social capital to leguist
organizations, but never the symbolic capital of the organizations they belonged to.
For example, many small industrialists or artisans (in a region characterized by a very
dense fabric of SMEs) have supported the party, but the professional organizations to
which they belonged never did.
This lack of support to institutions emanating from civil society is clearly
expressed through the polls, since the leguist electorate has a very feeble tendency to
use preferential vote. In Italy, prior to the 2006 electoral reform, individuals could
vote for a list mentioning the preferenza for an individual candidate. If a candidate
represented groups or organizations, his/her name would collect a high number of
preferences to ensure his/her election. Such was the case of Roberto Formigoni,
President of Lombardy since 2000 and member of the locally very influential Catholic
movement Communion and Liberation, who benefited from a high number of
preferential votes at every poll. On the contrary, the leguist electorate expresses little
preference and, if so, would generally go towards the heads of list. They cast a
partisan vote, rather than one rooted in “civil society” (Ceccanti, 1993).
In order to bridge this gap, Bossi gave birth, during the 1998 Congress, to
satellite organizations that would increase the party’s sphere of influence. The aim
was to create a truly associative movement that would assist the birth of Padania with
popular support. The “padan associations” (more than 20 in number), explicitly
following a gramscian approach, were therefore intended to bring the League within
civil society, thereby extending its recruitment basin. These associations were not an
emanation of civil society, but were created by the League which exerted tremendous
influence on them, especially through the direct nomination of the persons in charge.
The main consequence of this control is the closing of the padanist world. This
universe became self-referential to the point of being immune to external
commitments. In the Italian Communist Party, members were strongly advised to
invest the non-politicized local organizations, to the point of taking this investment
into consideration for internal promotions (Biorcio, 2003). In the League, not only are
these extra-partisan investments not encouraged, but, if they exist, they are often
short-lived. Entering the League leads to breaking from previous links and associative
activities, without it being ever explicitly demanded. Many of my informants were
actively involved in organizations, sportive or Catholic for the most part, before
joining the League. All of them abandoned their previous activities and the social
network attached, once they became members of the League. On the one hand,
belonging to the League does not lead to family or professional breakdowns, as seems
to be the case in other countries with Extreme Right activists (Linden and
Klandermans, 2007). All of those I have interviewed, even those who are part of the
anti-immigrant patrols, are still invited to family reunions, none of them have been
224
fired because of their political activities, and none of the businessmen ever lost their
clients on these grounds. On the other hand, none of them have pursued their previous
collective commitments, even when non-political. The padanists do not enrol in
sportive, charitable, or cultural organizations outside those of the party, and if they
had done so before, they stop their activities once member of the League.
This closure has important repercussions on the associative enrolment. Instead
of enlarging their social basis by attracting a non-activist public, which had been their
initial role, associations end up recruiting only within the League. This appears to be a
peculiar situation. Whether in France or in Italy, the communist organizations had
allowed the party to enlarge their recruitment base (Manoukian, 1968; Mischi, 2003).
Even the French stigmatized National Front has been able to utilize associations to
increase its membership and create an advocacy platform. According to Valérie
Lafont, “few are those who enter the party directly, especially among the youth”,
without going through an “initiation process” provided by National Front’s satellite
organizations (such as scouts, student associations, religious brotherhoods…) (Lafont,
2001:428). On the other hand, one exception aside, all my informants, including the
youth (who have become section activists at the age of 16 or 17), entered directly into
the party. The members I met were not socialized to leguism within student groups or
associations, but within the party itself and were only then strongly incited to join the
party’s satellite organizations. Far from “conquering civil society”, these padan
organizations became the stronghold of the most radical members: convinced and
openly xenophobic secessionists. Headquarters of the “ultras”, these associations are
clearly part of the “movementist” era aiming at promoting the “revolutionary” project
of an independent Padania, and the political actions which it implies. Their
management and members are therefore, in majority, opposed to any compromise,
including the alliance with Silvio Berlusconi. They consider the League as
fundamentally a party of opposition aiming at mobilizing society for Padania’s
independence, not a party which would govern Italy which is, to their eyes, an
“occupying State”.
The associations’ patent failure to carry out their hegemonic strategy was
predictable. The League was, at that time, a minor party and labeled as favouring the
the Independence of a Nation not claimed by anyone else. It would have been
surprising that organizations officially affiliated to it would have attracted external
sympathies. This limitation was quickly analyzed by the party itself. As proof, the
citation of Max Weber displayed by on the party’s official website under the section
“How associationism comes to be”: “what is possible could not be achieved if the
impossible was not constantly nagged. The role of politics does not lie within
mediation and compromise, but in the capacity to hold a political project, resisting
the most profound disillusions and responding to incomprehension with a proud
reaction: it does not matter, let’s go on”.11 I remained long startled with what seemed
to be the impossible-to-achieve hegemonic strategy. Although difficult to prove,
everything seems to show that Bossi had launched these associations knowing
perfectly well that they would be invested by the more radical pro-independence
members. Anticipating the deception of the “purists” in case of an alliance with
Berlusconi (which he had already begun to discretely negotiate), Bossi could have
well considered the ancillary organizations as a place dedicated to them. Whether
intentional or not, they have indeed created a “niche” hosting the most part of the
ultra-activist public, keeping them within the movement, preventing massive
11
Anonymous, 1999. No reference is given for this quote.
225
resignations and, more importantly, the defection of its members in favor of separate
autonomist movements.12
If the ancillary organizations did not fulfill the “hegemonic mission” that the
League had officially set for them, they have nonetheless played an important role in
maintaining the activists within the party. Confronted to adverse political
opportunities, the pro-independence activists saw in the padan organizations an
opportunity to make the “metapolitical battle” for Independence move forward. It is
only by taking this shelter role in consideration that the persistence of these
associations (with closings and openings) can be fully understood, during the five
years (2001-2006) that the League acceded to the government, and until today. This
retreat offers four types of advantages: it enables “hard core” activists to keep a clear
conscience (they are affiliated to padanist associations, and therefore have not
betrayed Padania); they are able to safeguard the social links forged in the party; they
don’t have to give up on the padanist movement style of participation they appreciate
and continue to value the competences they have developed within it (more details on
this will be given).
The term “retreat” should not hint at the fact that organizations members are
less active than section ones, on the contrary. The associative life is not, as with the
National Front, a “softer form of political life”, a “lesser commitment” which gives to
members an opportunity to step down from the hectic political life during specific
moments of their lives (marriage, maternity, etc.) or political conjuncture (Lafont,
2001:427). The padan associations are groups of activists requesting sustained
dedication. They are able to produce very dense activity schedules. Every time I went
in the field, I had a choice, at the end of each week, to attend sportive, cultural,
humanitarian or festive activities. Associations actively contribute in keeping the
partisan collective alive.
Hence, the dual structure of the leguist organization (power enterprise and
movementist area) is efficient because it “protects” the activists from the
demobilizing effects of the party’s institutionalization which began after its access to
power, but also because it offers a wide variety of possibilities of political
participation, including for people devoid of any precise competence or cultural
capital.
2.2. A PARTISAN CULTURE OFFERING PARTICIPATION AND EVEN
PROFESSIONALIZATION POSSIBILITIES TO UNSKILLED MEMBERS
Frédéric Sawicki and Johanna Siméant argue, in a stimulating article (Sawicki and
Siméant, 2009), that it is through the organization of political parties and movements
that their militant success or failure can be understood, by looking at the socially
selective, or not, aspect of their activities. According to the authors, some
organizations remain attractive because they manage, more than others, to offer
activities that make little technical or ideological demand on those who wish to
engage with them. The militant success of some organizations, such as the Peasant
12
Several autonomist groups were created after the League gave up on the project of
Independence, hoping to collect membership from the disappointed “hard core” party
members. Although they managed to highjack some of the leguist votes during the
2001 Legislative Elections, they never managed to structurally organize themselves
and soon disappeared.
226
Confederation in France, is therefore linked with their capacity to design activities
where any of their members can find their place (dismantling the McDonald in
Millau, pulling out GMO plants, demonstrations, road blocks, etc.) (Bruneau, 2004).
In short, these organizations are described as socially less exclusive than those whose
activities (debate, expertise) require more specific competences, and which therefore
are not able to open themselves to vaster possibilities of recruitment.
Although I agree with this analysis, it seems to me that to approach the
question of social exclusion produced by political organizations, which is a central
question to understand the conditions of their militant success, requires to focus not
only on the organization itself (types of activities, division and organization of
militant labour), but also the partisan culture of the group analyzed (conceptions and
beliefs which cement this division of labour). In the case of the Northern League, the
activities proposed by padan associations do not appear, at first glance, to favour the
attraction of activists devoid of significant technical competence or cultural capitals.
The animation of a cultural association or a Radio programme, or making a speech
during a session of the Padan Parliament in front of elected representatives or leaders
of the party are, seemingly, activities which are socially selective. Yet, in the context
of a partisan culture that belittles intellectuals, diplomas, the “official culture” and
ideology, while promoting the “heart”, emotion and self-gift, this does not seem to be
the case. To illustrate the possibilities of participation, and even of
professionalization, which are offered through this particular partisan culture, the
following retraces two members trajectories and one situation of observation at the
Padan Parliament.
Antonella, from waitress to organizer of cultural circuits
In her forties, living with a partner but with no children, Antonella comes from a large
and popular family. She grew up in a Pre-Alpine village where the League is very
influential. She discontinued her education at the age of 14 (official age limit at her
time) and started to work as a waitress, which she still does today. Having “always”
voted for the League, she became, encouraged by her brother-in-law, an active
member in 1998, the year padan associations were created: “since sections always
need active people, I was interested. So I entered, and I began demonstrating,
collecting signatures, and the usual stuff, you know. And then the associations
appeared, and the secretary requested that each person of the section would take a
reference association to promote it, and to develop it on the territory, and I related
most to Beautiful Padania”13, association which offers cultural visits to create a sense
of belonging amongst militant of the padan legacy. In fact, Antonella would have
liked to work in tourism and “see the world”, but she never did.
While listening to the party radio, Free Padania Radio, Antonella decided to
contact the President of Beautiful Padania, Roberto14, to bring to his notice a medieval
13
Interview with Antonella, Trezzo, February 2001.
Born in 1945 in Milan from an illegitimate union, Roberto started working as a
photographer after High School. He then became teacher and theatre director. Once
divorced, his career became unstable (import-export, communication). Politicized
during the 1968 movement, he used to be close to extreme left extra-parliamentarian
groups. After a brief membership with the PC (1975), he continued to vote for the
Left, but left activism altogether. He voted for the League for the first time during the
local Election of 1990, took membership in 1992 and became a party employee
(“permanente”) in 1993 as President of the Cultural Commission of the party. During
14
227
village which could be worth a visit. Indeed, Roberto was at that time requesting
members, on the partisan radio, to report on the “unknown treasures” of Padania. She
therefore called him “to explain where the place is and he told me: ok, fine, organize
a visit. I told him: but I never organized anything in my life. He said: so what?”
Roberto’s indifference to Antonella’s diplomas or professional experience, her being
neither a tourist professional nor an expert of fine arts, has had a liberating effect on
her, the same which I observed with other members coming from poorer backgrounds.
The disdain within the League for the legitimate culture milieu leads to a strong
isolation of the partisan scene, which has become self-referential; but the little
consideration given to the activists’ personal capital, especially when it comes to
education, can also lift the complexes of those who have none. It enabled Antonella, a
waitress, to become an organizer of cultural visits and a radio animator.
Antonella therefore organized her first tour. Three years later, she still seemed
surprised that “everything had gone well. Quite a few people came, and they liked it”.
Encouraged by Roberto, she then was put in charge of visits for the Lombardy section
of the League, without giving up on her full time job as a waitress, knowing that
Beautiful Padania could not give compensation for her work. She organized 12 visits
in 1999, 20 in 2000 and 24 in 2001 (comprizing each time of an itinerary, a restaurant
and a printed presentation). She also started to speak on the party radio once a week to
advertise for the visits. Yet, despite Roberto’s trust, Antonella cannot shake off the
feeling of being culturally unworthy, especially when she needs to talk on the radio
(“from time to time, I stammer and my diction is not good”), and compares herself to
other members of the organization with depreciating eyes: “Mariella mostly organizes
meetings where they speak of culture and things like that; but I couldn’t start doing
conferences if I wanted to. Mariella, yes, she even wrote a book. She’s a writer, a
person of culture. I consider myself a little bit like the arm, the one that does things,
but does not put much brain into it, but…(left in suspense)”. Antonella is not a
stranger to the feeling of cultural indignity which, according to Bernard Pudal, strikes
any working class activists acceding to political responsibilities (Pudal, 1989:139199). To overcome her sense of inadequacy, Antonella needs to prepare herself
thoroughly. In order to prepare the presentation of the tour to be distributed to the
participants, she goes to the library: “we are soon going to the Bagolino carnival, so I
go to the library to find out what they do there. After that, I make a summary, I choose
photographs, I make photocopies and that is how I prepare the information
brochure”. But Antonella also looks at the political aspects. When choosing a
destination, she tries to “favour places which are least known, because the aim of the
association is to make unknown things known to the public, which is not yet politically
aware”. Antonella understands perfectly that the aim is to construct a patrimony for
Padania, which requires investing in what is not already Italianized. In order to
constantly make a link between a monument, or a specific locality, and padanity,
Antonella uses the brochures that she writes and the radio shows on which she
describes the circuit. She therefore carries out an eminently political work of “writing
and representation” indicating to the participants, before they are on the site, “what
needs to be seen and felt” (Thiesse, 1999:246).
According to Daniel Gaxie, by mobilizing agents belonging to deprived
categories, partisan organizations can contribute to the socialization and political
authorization (process by which a person ends up feeling authorized to have political
my field work, he was a simple permanente, but very active as President of Beautiful
Padania.
228
opinions) of its members, and the compensation, for some of them, of the exclusion
effects of education dominated politicization processes (Gaxie, 1978; Mauger, 1990).
This process of political authorization has worked well with Antonella who has
accomplished, for the party, a political and cultural work that she is proud of. It is
easily understandable how such a process produced a strong link between Antonella
and the party.
A truck driver in the Padan Parliament
Gathering once a month and animated by activists, the Padan Parliament that was
active at the time of my fieldwork15 was part of a strategy which I named “let us do as
if”, aping the Italian State (through a Padan Government or competitions for Miss
Padania) and to “do as if” Padania already existed. The Parliament’s work is divided
in two: the different commissions (“constitutional and legal affairs”, “environment”,
“culture, school and university”, “economy”, “external affairs”, “family and society”,
“interior and immigration”, “labor”, “youth”, “health”, “sport”) get together in the
morning to prepare the texts; in the afternoon, their motions are presented by
rapporteurs to the delegates and voted under close watch of the “officials”. The day of
my visit (18th March 2000), the latter were: the Padan Parliament President Francesco
Speroni (European Parliamentarian who came from Brussels for the occasion), Mario
Borghezio and Renata Galanti (a party staff in charge of the associative sector of the
League). The exercise imposed to the rapporteurs shows that the Padan Parliament
can play the role of a true “political school”, especially for those activists devoid of
any cultural capital: they can learn how to speak in public, how to shape arguments
and how to refer to the existing legislation. The rapporteurs work at home and come
to the meeting with a written paper, which implies that they have learned how to
consult law texts and how to lay on paper their thoughts. But the Padan Parliament
has also another attribute: it personifies, as the following example will show, the ideal
of politics made by “people” rather than by professionals.
The “interior and immigration” commission was presenting, on the day of my
visit, a text on long distance truck driving regulations, and aiming at improving safety
on the roads. On such a topic, one would expect a very technical discussion. Yet,
instead of hearing a speech full of references to the Labour Code and figures on
transport, as it would have been the case at the Italian Parliament, the “Padan
Parliamentarians” listened to a truck driver, himself rapporteur of the law project,
describing the harshness of his profession. According to the “Padan Parliamentarian”,
visibly emotional about talking on the microphone in front of “officials” and a large
public (around 200 people), the already difficult working conditions of truck drivers
had considerably declined since the “extra-communitarians” had become part of the
trade. By “breaking prices”, the “immigrants” have diminished the strength of the
drivers in front of their employers. The latter thereby imposed longer working hours,
which meant insufficient time to rest. Hence, according to this member of the Padan
Truckers Association, this was the root cause of road safety problems. The foreseen
solution was to regulate the trade so as to exclude “extra-communitarians” from the
job. Therefore, technical in appearance only, this motion rapidly became a plea,
emotionally charged, against immigration. It appears that, even for the more neutral
issues (such as the truck driving profession), the “padan style” politics is not
equivalent, in content and in language, to that of “Rome”. At the “Padan Parliament”,
15
Since 1995, several forms of “parliaments” were put in place, whether animated by
elected representatives, or directly by members.
229
only those entirely immerged in a situation have legitimacy to talk about it (rather
than professional politicians) and the language used is charged with emotions (instead
of trying to be objective and technical, as “real” Parliamentarians would). The League
therefore bestows to its activists the hope of a world where truckers can express
themselves, be heard and respected. It is easy to see how such a space not only
provides the opportunity for its members to participate and develop their
competences, but also to re-enchant partisan politics.
Igor, from being a failing student to a partisan journalist.
The partisan apparatus developed by the party to support the claim for independence,
despite being largely fed by volunteers such as Antonella or the truck driver of the
Parliament, also created a number of permanent posts (exact figures cannot be
obtained) which were given to the most devoted activists, including those devoid of
personal capital (especially cultural capital), some of which in sectors which would
normally require strong technical competencies, such as journalism.
Almost all leguists staff are promoted activists, irrespective of the task they
have been assigned. The administrative, intellectual and technical posts are occupied
by members devoting an important part of their time to political activities, instead of
the task they are being paid for. Party headquarters doorkeeper, secretary or La
Padania journalist posts are often given to activists to ensure that they have the means
to devote most of their time to political activities. The League has not
professionalized its recruitment. It seldom hires non-militant specialists and, if so,
only because of a lack of better alternatives. As an example, the journalists at La
Padania were in majority professionals when the partisan daily began to be published
in 1997. But these professional journalists have, since then, been progressively
replaced by activists who learned journalism “by doing” and do not carry any
diplomas which would normally lead to such a profession (they are generally High
School diploma holders). The League does not abide by the “modernizing” ideology
which, to take a French example, the Socialist Party (PS) has adopted. There, it has
become customary to establish a “job profile” for any advertized post. Some even
require a job interview (Aldrin and Barboni, 2009; Sawicki and Lenoir, 2006). These
practices are unknown at the League, which still considers permanent posting as a
“bonus” given to the most devoted activists, their loyalty being of more worth than
their technical skills.
This is how Igor, party member since the age of 17, very active in the
associative branch of the party’s youth sector (25 years at the time of the interview),
has been offered a journalist job at the party’s daily newspaper, first as a freelance,
and then as a permanent employee. At the time, Igor had given up on his studies,
which he had never really started, since he was a full time activist since the age of 18.
His job at La Padania not only gave him a salary, but also the ability to continue
active militancy. His salary is not that of a journalist, but Igor does not complain,
especially considering he could never pretend to such a level of employment with his
level of education. In fact, he is considerably less educated than those of his
colleagues at La Padania who were recruited outside the militant network.
Employment depending directly on the party which perceives it as a vocation
(employees have to devote all their time to “the cause”), the small scale of the pay is
not seen as unjust. These low salaries (a partisan staff used to be paid 900 Euros at the
time of my field work) explain, in part, that the permanents of the League are
particularly young and often with no family, if not living with their parents (like Igor).
Despite the small remuneration and the intense commitment requested, the greatest
230
aspiration of the padanists is not to access a highly paid elective post (as is the case
for Deputies of regional governments), but to climb the internal ladder. For activists
such as Igor, who “does not like party politics very much”, the aim is not to get
elected, but to remain “in the movement” where “it is about defending liberty. So, it is
not to know whether enterprises should be privatized or not, or if we need more
highways. Here, the line is that there is an entire people to liberate from oppression,
so the motivations are much stronger”.16
In Igor’s case, as in many others, the League promotes members to posts for
which they do not have the required capitals: Igor, son of a semi-wholesaler in
mineral water and holding an A level diploma without any professional experience,
did not have a chance to become a journalist. Yet, this professionalization does not
lead to the activist’s individual emancipation, but to his captivity. Outside the League,
Igor cannot make his acquired competencies recognized. Symptomatically, he
remains, today, at the same post. “Recycling” him is impossible. His ascension, which
was solely founded on his militant capital (Matonti and Poupeau, 2004), entirely
depends on the party which can, if needed, demean him. It is therefore understandable
that the leguist staff, truly underpaid, is particularly faithful to the party.
3. CONCLUSION
The militant success of the League, which not only gave it a social base, but also
legitimacy in the political game, is therefore based on two factors.
The first is of a cultural order: by promoting a partisan culture based on “the
heart” and devotion, despising the legitimate culture’s model and giving only
marginal value to education and diplomas, the League opens up new possibilities of
participation, or even professionalization, to activists devoid of technical
competencies a priori required for the activities in which they engage themselves
(cultural activities, journalism, etc.). The League thus retains the loyalty of its
members, and even more so of its staff which have been both “promoted” and
enslaved, due to the impossible transfer of their leguist militant capital in other
spheres.
The other is organizational: by ensuring cohabitation of “the party” and “the
movement”, the League is able to access power (and associated resources), while
keeping its activists who see the League as an opposition party by essence, if not a
revolutionary movement.
The party offers these activists some of the benefits derived from being in
power. In fact, the padan apparatus is very costly to sustain, and the party was almost
bankrupt before recovering power by allying with Berlusconi (the La Padania
newspaper almost closed down). Therefore, the party’s professionalization does not
reduce the weight of militancy. On the contrary, the public funds obtained have also
been used to support the partisan apparatus. In return, the party “base”, which
considers the organization as a movement, can also serve the “Government League”.
It is often being used to threaten its Rightwing allies: if they do not support the
federalist and anti-immigration policies of the League, then who can prevent this
“base” from giving way to their secessionist aspirations?
The equilibrium is nonetheless fragile. It requires some commitments from the
leguist leaders, such as going to acclaim the padan football team, or the newly elected
16
Inteview with Igor, Milan, November 2000.
231
Miss Padania, while holding office as Interior or Reform ministers. They end up
taking positions difficult to understand unless considering their role as representatives
of the “Government League”: they refuse to take part in the National Day official
ceremonies, do not support the Italian football team during the world championships,
or refuse to subsidize the 150 years commemoration of Italy’s merger. It also requires
to put in place unifying rituals, especially during the big meetings taking place twice a
year, in Pontida and Venice respectively (commemorating the virtual independence of
Padania) where the party, including elected representatives, reverts to the popular
language of the “Battle League” putting the “Padanist World” to the forefront. The
ministers’ and elected representatives’ thunderous speeches (threats of secession,
virulent criticism of allies…), to which the press systematically gives a front cover,
are generally denied the next day. But the activists “know” that their elected members
“had to” withdraw their statements for strategic reasons, but that they had spoken
what they truly had at heart during the meeting.
This equilibrium between a governmental party and a “revolutionary”
movement is increasingly difficult to keep as the party accumulates years of being in
power (with its allies, it has governed the country between 2001 and 2006, and again
since 2008). But, to this day, it still seems to be holding.
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233
CENTRIFUGAL REGIONALISM AND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION IN
BELGIUM
Jeroen Van Laer
University of Antwerp, Department of Political Sciences, Media, Movements & Politics
(M2P) Research Group
1. INTRODUCTION
Belgium is often depicted as a “divided society” with two regions, a Flemish and a
Walloon, having a difficult “marriage of convenience”, at the same time bound to each
other as well as drifting further away both politically, economically, and culturally. In
Belgium the ongoing process of further regionalization has led to several mobilizations
where people take to the streets either to defend strong regional claims, either to defend
the current federal system and interregional solidarity. The process of (centrifugal)
regionalism in Flanders has a longstanding history of political mobilization. The Flemish
Movement goes back to the late 19th century, originally struggling against the political,
economic and cultural dominance of the francophone elite, but later on – and still today –
also questioning the mere existence of a unitary Belgian state. On the other hand,
dynamics of centrifugal regionalism certainly also have an impact on the dynamics of
political mobilization itself and the Belgian social movement sector at large. With two
separate political and cultural “spaces” in Belgium, the social movement space is also
clearly divided in a Flemish part and a Walloon part. The shift from a national social
movement industry, using Zald and McCarthy’s (1987) term, towards two regional social
movement industries was especially encouraged in the late ‘70s with the regionalization
of the grant system for socio-cultural organizations and associations. This was very clear
in the peace movement sector where peace organizations like Pax Christi or the
BUVV/BUPD created a Flemish and a Walloon chapter so that both parts could claim
money in their respective region.1 Although it is still common for social movement
activists from both Flanders as well as Wallonia to join forces, to mobilize for a common
cause, and to organize massive protest demonstrations in the streets of Brussels, capital of
Belgium, still dynamics of regionalization somehow seem to divide the protesting public
in a Walloon and Flemish part. For instance, after the massive demonstrations against the
imminent war in Iraq in 2003 some people stated that the Walloon part of the
1
Personal interview with Georges Spriet, Vrede vzw, 2/06/2008
235
mobilization was much more radical and left-wing than the Flemish attendees. And more
recently, when Flemish and Walloon environmental groups organized their national
demonstration against climate change, a similar sound was raised with the Walloon
organizations much more inclined to use more direct forms of protest action while the
Flemish groups saw more merit in lobbying strategies or small scale forms of action.2
In this contribution we will look at “centrifugal regionalism” in the context of
political protest mobilization, making a systematic comparison of individual protesters
from two different angles. In the context of political mobilization one can look at
dynamics of centrifugal regionalism as a political movement or as a process having
consequences for social movements that operate in these regions. More specifically we
are interested in how dynamics of centrifugal regionalism result in different mobilizing
constituencies. A “regional divide” can be present between demonstrating constituencies
as regionalism becomes a cause in itself (e.g. a Flemish versus a Belgicist March), or it
can be present among a population of demonstrators protesting for the same issue (e.g.
Flemish and Walloon peace activists marching together in a national demonstration to
protest against an imminent war in Iraq).
In order to test whether dynamics of centrifugal regionalism also have a
consequence for mobilization dynamics at the individual level, we will use two sets of
individual level data collected among actual protest participants that took part in several
demonstrations in Belgium between February 2006 and December 2007.3 A first set
contains two specific demonstrations with specific “regionalist” claims: a first one was
organized in the run-up to the Belgian federal elections in 2007 claiming Flemish
independence (the Flemish March). The second one was organized in the aftermath of the
difficult governmental negotiations between Flemish and Walloon coalition partners in
that same year. Several thousands of people took to the streets to defend the unity and
interregional solidarity of the Belgian federal state (March for Unity). A second set
contains national demonstrations where activist from Flanders as well as Wallonia joined
forces: an antiwar demonstration, a climate change demonstration, two union
mobilizations (VW Vorst and Purchasing Power), and a silent march in memory of a
youngster that was killed during a mug. With the first set of demonstrations we want to
find an answer for the question whether protest mobilization is similar or different for
people pursuing further regionalization versus those people who are reluctant to further
regionalization. With the second dataset we are interested in the way the Belgian “divided
society” is also reflected in a distinct Flemish and Walloon mobilizing constituency
pursuing the same cause, but each with its own mobilizing capacities and protest
characteristics. Here the question is: Is protest mobilization similar or different for
Flemish versus Walloon protest participants in a particular protest demonstration?
This contribution is in the first place empirical and explorative. By closely
looking at the different dynamics on the individual level we can learn much about the
impact of processes of regionalization in civil society. Looking at people who
participated in the Flemish March versus those who participated in the March for Unity
can learn us a lot about the Flemish Movement and the Belgian Movement (if one can
speak of a movement). Which kinds of people are committed to these movements? Their
2
Personal interview with spokesperson Climate Change demonstration, 24/11/2008
A full description of each demonstration is presented in the methodological section of
this article
3
236
claims are diametrically opposing each other, but they still might share similar
characteristics in terms of socio-demographics or how they were mobilized. In a similar
vein we can learn a lot about a possible regional divide present among participants in the
same demonstration. Do Flemish and Walloon participants, besides living on a different
side of the language border, still share the same characteristics in socio-demographics
terms or in how and why they were mobilized? In more general terms both comparisons
will learn us a lot about the extent to which regional tendencies are indeed dividing
Belgian civil society.
2. METHODS AND DATA
In order to analyze activist characteristics across diverse protest demonstrations, we
distributed individual-level protest surveys at seven different demonstrations that took
place in Belgium between February 2006 and December 2007. For each of these
demonstrations a standardized sampling and interview procedure was followed as
introduced by Favre and colleagues (1997) and further refined by Van Aelst and
Walgrave (2001) and Walgrave and Verhulst (2008): two groups of interviewers, each
directed by a fieldwork supervisor, hand out similar questionnaires asking protesters to
fill in the survey at home and send it back with the prepaid envelope. The fieldwork
supervisor selects the participants to be interviewed in order to reduce possible selection
bias. A short face-to-face interview with each respondent makes it possible to check for
response bias. Protest participants were picked out according to a carefully designed
selection method following a probabilistic logic: a rough estimation of the number of
attendants is made, which is then turned into an estimation of demonstration rows. In
every nth-row, surveys are handed out to attendants alternatively in the middle of a row
and at the left- and right-hand side of it. A first group of interviewers moves from the
head of the demonstration towards the tail. A second group carries out the same
procedure, but starting from the tail up to the front of the demonstration. This way every
protester should have a similar “chance” to participate in the survey. This method proved
to generate reliable results and only minimal response bias (the only bias is that older
people are somewhat more willing to send the survey back). A more detailed description
of this method, difficulties in the actual execution, and reliability tests can be found in
Walgrave and Verhulst (2008).
We provide descriptive figures and facts and response rates for each
demonstration in Table 1. For our double comparisons we created two subsets of
demonstrations. A first set contains two protest demonstrations. First, the Flemish March,
a demonstration organized by a coalition of the Flemish nationalist movement and some
right-wing nationalist student organizations. The principal claim of the Flemish March
was Flemish independence and it attracted a lot of political far-right militants. Second,
the March for Unity, a large mobilization that was organized about half a year later after
government negotiations failed because of regionalist tensions between several coalition
partners. On 18 November 2007 more than 35,000 people took to the streets in Brussels.
Their principle claim: that political leaders should focus on the “real problems of people”
instead of fighting about communitarian issues.
A second set of demonstrations contains five demonstrations that can be further
categorized in three distinct groups. First of all we have two demonstrations traditionally
237
labeled as “new social movements” covering issues like peace and antiwar (Antiwar—
against the enduring occupation of Iraq), and environmental concerns (Climate Change).
A second subset of demonstrations is typically labeled as “old social movements”, staged
by long-established movement organizations. These are very typical trade union
mobilizations organized around characteristic “bread and butter” issues. VW Vorst is
about possible redundancies in a large car factory, and Purchasing Power mobilized
against inflation and lowering purchasing power. Finally, we have a rather a-typical
subset containing one demonstration and which is often labeled as “new emotional
movement” (cf. Walgrave and Manssens, 2000; Walgrave and Verhulst, 2006). What is
distinct about these kinds of protest events is that they are spontaneous and emotional
with no clear movement organizations involved in staging the event, and without a clearcut cleavage around which participants are mobilized, and hence attract a very diverse
and broad group of citizens. They are typically organized following an act of random
violence (cf. Million Mom March in the U.S.). The March for Joe was organized after the
brutal killing of a youngster named Joe Van Holsbeeck. General response rates for these
demonstrations are satisfying, with an average of 37 percent. Both sets, with
demonstrations across movement types and demonstration issues, imply a great deal of
contextual differences, which allows for an interesting test about centrifugal regionalist
tendencies across different activist populations.
Name
Movement
type
Time
Table 1. Descriptive Figures and Response Rates for Each Demonstration
Flemish March for Anti- Climate VW Vorst Purcha- March for
March
Unity
war
Change
sing
Joe
Power
REGIONAL REGIONAL
NSM
NSM
OSM
OSM
NEM
15 Dec
23 Apr
6 May 2007 18 Nov 2007 19 Mar 8 Dec 2007 2 Dec 2006
2006
2007
2006
Rode
Brussels Brussels Brussels
Brussels
Brussels
Brussels
Place
More
Interregional Against
Against
Against
Against
Against
Aim
autonomy for solidarity occupaglobal
restructuinflation
random
Flemish
tion Iraq warming
ring VW
and
violence +
region
and climate car factory lowering
in memochange
purchasing riam Joe
power
Van
Holsbeeck
1,500
35,000
5,000
3,000
15,000
20,000
80,000
# participants
# questionnaires
554
515
915
548
878
398
1018
Distributed
235
221
316
189
270
126
437
Completed
42
43
34
34
31
32
43
Response rate
(%)
Note: NSM = New Social Movement; OSM = Old Social Movement; NEM = New
Emotional Movement
238
3. ANALYSES AND RESULTS
In their classic study on political participation Verba, Schlozman and Brady (1995) argue
that people participate because they can, because they are asked to, and because they
want to. People can participate in collective action because, first of all, their present
personal and professional demands do not hinder participation (e.g. students are more
likely to participate because they generally have fewer demands on their time) (cf.
McAdam, 1986), and second, they hold certain beliefs and political attitudes that make
them more susceptible to participate (Downton and Wehr, 1997). This thus points to
some kind of “attitudinal availability” next to a certain “biographical” availability. People
are more likely to be asked to participate when they are embedded in a network of
interpersonal relations. Network ties, both informal (with friends or family) as well as
formal (with co-members in an organization) are consequently found to be a strong and
robust predictor of protest participation (Snow et al., 1980; Schussman and Soule, 2005).
Finally, people participate because they want to. People participating in collective action,
at least, are willing to do so (Klandermans, 1997). But their motivation, or the different
motives and reasons why they do so, can be very diverse. According to Klandermans
(2004:362-365) people can, broadly speaking, be motivated for collective action
participation in three ways: for instrumental reasons, out of a sense of collective identity,
and out of ideological reasons. Instrumental benefits are based on the rational costbenefits calculation of future participation on both collective incentives (usually the
common goal of a protest demonstration) as well as selective incentives (Olson, 1971;
Wilson, 1973; Verba et al., 1995; Klandermans 1997; 2004); the latter sometimes include
material benefits, but often also purposive (a participation-intrinsic gratification by
getting a sense of fulfilment of doing the right thing and promoting our beliefs), as well
as social benefits (by, e.g., gaining respect and engaging in social interaction with others).
Related to these social incentives is the concept of collective identity, which is, in a
nutshell, determined by the participants’ feel of group belonging; in-group solidarity, as
well as some sort of oppositional consciousness (“us” versus “them”) (Melucci, 1988;
Gamson 1992; Klandermans, 1997). The third participation motive of ideology
(Klandermans, 2004:363) is closely related to the concept of purposive incentives, since
it refers to people “wanting to express one’s views” (Klandermans, 2004:365), out of a
sense of moral indignation, which is to a large degree determined by an emotional
response to an aggrieving situation, like feelings of injustice, anger, moral outrage,
indignation, or confusion.
It is this classic threefold distinction between who, how, and why that serves as the
framework in this article to discuss the differences between first, Flemish versus Belgicist
mobilizations, and second, Flemish versus Walloon protest participants. Since the aim of
this article is explorative, we will only use simple crosstables to illustrate the different
comparisons.
239
3.1. COMPARISON 1: CENTRIFUGAL REGIONALISM AS A POLITICAL
MOVEMENT4
Who?
Table 2. Socio-demographics (in %)
Flemish
March for
March
Unity
Man
72
53
Sex
Woman
28
47
Total
100
100
<30
26
23
Age
31-40
14
15,5
41-50
17
20
51-65
25
29
65+
18
12,5
Total
100
100
No/primaries
3
4
Education
Technical
15
8
secondary
General
25
15
secondary
Higher non28
28
university
University
29
45
Total
100
100
Full time
40
50
Occupation
Part time
6
9
Student
10,5
4
Unemployed
4
4,5
Retired
29
25
Husband/housew
2,5
4
ife
Other/missing
8
3,5
Total
100
100
N
235
221
Note: missings for “occupation” are mostly people aged 65 or
higher.
For this first comparison we make a distinction between on the hand the Flemish March
and on the other hand the “Belgian” March for Unity. Following our threefold distinction
4
This section is based on previous work that can be found in Walgrave, Van Laer and
Verhulst, 2008.
240
we first of all will look at the socio-demographic characteristics of the people
participating in each of these events. At the Flemish March we find slightly more male,
younger and lower educated demonstrators compared to the March for Unity (see Table
2). The Flemish March was a predominantly male demonstration whereas the March for
unity contains much more equal proportions of men and women. Average age on the
Flemish March is slightly younger, although there is a much larger cohort of seniors
(+65) at the Flemish March compared to the March for Unity. Compared to the other
demonstrations (see further), both demonstrations in this dataset contain on average a
higher proportion of older people. The Flemish March was an initiative of a right-wing
student organization (the KVHV) but they built on a longstanding history of the Flemish
Movement, represented most prominently by the Vlaamse Volksbeweging (VVB –
Flemish Popular Movement), founded in 1956. This is also clearly reflected in the
professional profile of the “Flemish” demonstrators amongst which we find relatively
more students and retired people. The March for Unity, in fact the initiative of only one
person, especially attracted higher educated people between 40 and 50 with a full time
job. Yet, also in this demonstration there is a significant amount of retired people who
wanted to show their solidarity with the Belgian state.
One specific socio-demographic characteristic we want to focus a little bit more
on is language (Table 3). Of course this feature is of very little relevance for the Flemish
March, where – unsurprisingly – 100 percent was Dutch-speaking. At the March for
Unity, however, some interesting results can be found. We asked our respondents both
where they live as well as which language they speak at home. We find that the majority
of “Belgian” demonstrators were French-speaking (65 percent); 21 percent was Dutchspeaking and 15 percent indicated to speak both languages equally well. Furthermore, it
appeared that most participants came from Brussels itself, followed by Walloons and
Flemings. This means that nearly one third of the participants at the March for Unity
were French-speaking inhabitants of Brussels. There was thus only a limited amount of
“pure” Flemings—Dutch-speaking and living in Flanders—present at the March for
Unity. Yet, also the amount of “pure” Walloons—French-speaking and living in
Wallonia—is in fact not that large. The majority of the participants has a more
ambivalent statute: they speak a different language than we would expect according to the
region where they live, they live in a dual-speaking area, or they speak two languages
themselves (together 64 percent). One might say that these are the “real” Belgians, or, at
least, the Belgians that want to take to the streets for Belgium. The low figure of
Flemings at the March for Unity was, according to some people, the result of the very
little attention for the March in the Flemish mass media. We will return to this in a next
section.
Table 3. Language according to region for the March for Unity (in %)
Dutch
French
Bilingual
Total
6
31
7
44
Region Brussels
Wallonia
3,5
24
4
32
Flanders
11,5
9
4
24
Total
21
64
15
100
N
107
325
74
506
Note: Figures represent total percentages
241
How?
The way both demonstrations gained momentum differs fundamentally. As mentioned
earlier, the Flemish March was principally organized by the KVHV and the VVB, both
important organizations of the current Flemish movement. The March for Unity, on the
contrary, was the initiative of one single housewife. Here there were no clear
organizational connections or links, nor was there any previous experience in organizing
a demonstration. In De Standaard of 16 November 2007, one of the main quality papers
in Flanders, the following appeared: “The organizers repeat over and over again that this
movement is ‘a-political and spontaneous’ ... ‘That is why things can get very confused
sometimes here’, says one co-organizer Andy Vermaut, after a very chaotic press
conference yesterday afternoon.” An analysis of the media coverage in the run-up to both
demonstrations would probably reveal that the Flemish March only got minimal media
attention, while the March for Unity was more widely covered, especially in the Walloon
press. The question is whether this different organizational background, a structured
movement on the one hand and a more informal happening with a lot of media support, is
also translated in specific activist characteristics. Well, that certainly seems to be the
case. Table 4 clearly illustrates the differences. First of all, we asked our respondents with
whom they attended the demonstration. The Flemish March was for the largest part
attended by people who were accompanied by co-members of an organization (53
percent). The Flemish March very much is a typical well-organized demonstration,
comparable to the more frequent protest actions organized by trade unions. The March
for Unity is almost the exact mirror image: people participating in this event were there
with informal relations, family or friends (together 76 percent). Moreover, a lot of people
were there alone (20 percent). In fact the March for Unity much resembles the White
March of 1996 or the recent Silent March in 2006, both “new emotional events” (cf.
Walgrave and Verhulst, 2006). Finally, both demonstrations are not rooted in a
professional sphere: the amount of colleagues or co-students is negligible.
A second indicator about the way the demonstration was organized and how the
social movement behind it operates, is the information channel through which the
participants heard about the event. Again we find very different patterns in both
demonstrations (Table 5). Participants at the Flemish March principally heard about the
demonstration via other members of an organization, while participants at the March for
Unity were mostly informed via classic mass media (TV, newspapers, radio). Similar to
both demonstrations is the relative importance of informal relations (friends, family) and
especially new communication technologies (websites, email) to be informed about the
demonstration. The Flemish March can be termed as a typical “closed” mobilization, that
strongly benefited of a robust network of organizations, while the March for Unity has a
diametrically opposed “open” mobilization pattern where mass media play a crucial role
and organizations are almost completely absent or passed-by (cf. Walgrave and
Klandermans, 2010). As mentioned, mass media attention for the March for Unity was
lower in Flanders than in Wallonia. Still, a lot of Flemings present at the demonstration
indicated that they heard about the event via mass media channels. However, compared to
Walloons present at the March for Unity, Flemings also much more benefited from
informal relations and online media channels for information about the demonstration
(figures not shown in table).
242
Table 4. Protest company (in %)
Flemish
March for
Are you at this demonstration…?
March
Unity
Alone
10
20
With partner and/or family
19
45,5
With friends and/or acquaintances
17,5
31
With colleagues and/or co-students
0,5
1,5
With fellow members of an
53
2
organization
Total
100
100
N
232
219
Note: originally respondents could check multiple answers. Here only the
most formal category was used. Thus, if a respondent indicated both
‘partner’ and ‘members’, only the latter category was used.
Table 5. Information channel (multiple response) (in %)
Flemish March March for Unity
TV, newspapers, radio
6
64
Family, friends, colleagues
36
39
Websites, e-mail
59
56
Posters/flyers, ads
54
18
Members (magazines) of an
69
3
organization
N
230
220
Note: Percentages are based on respondents.
Finally, we investigate whether these different mobilization patterns are also translated in
different protest experiences. We expect that especially the Flemish protesters are, as a
result of their strong organizational embeddedment, much more experienced with
protesting than the “Belgian” demonstrators. Table 6 contains the results and confirms
this expectation. Typical for the March for Unity is the large amount of first-times: 26
percent of the respondents reported that they participated in a collective action event for
the very first time. The difference with the Flemish March is huge. Flemish marchers
clearly have a lot more experience: almost half of them report that they previously
participated more than 10 times in other demonstrations. At the March for Unity this is
only 6 percent. In sum, in terms of mobilization and protest experience, thus the kind of
social movement, there are fundamental differences between the Flemish March and the
March for Unity.
243
Table 6. Protest experience (in %)
Flemish
March for
March
Unity
First time
6
26
2 - 5 times
31
54
6 - 10 times
16,5
14
More than 10 times
46,5
6
Total
100
100
N
231
218
Why?
Why did both “Flemish” and “Belgian” demonstrators participate in a collective event?
As mentioned, we can broadly speak of three general motivations: people participate for
instrumental reasons, because of a collective identity, or because of expressive
ideological reasons (Klandermans, 2004). In order to measure instrumentality we asked
our respondents to what extent they believed the demonstration would be effective in
attaining its goals. In both demonstrations opinions are divided. Participants of the
Flemish March are mostly pessimistic: 52 percent reports that the demonstration will not
help to reach its goals. Participants of the March for Unity are much more optimistic:
more than a third believes the demonstration will help to change things. Yet, an equal
proportion believes the opposite or is undecided on this matter. If so many Flemish
protesters do not believe that their demonstration will lead to any instrumental changes,
why do they then protest? Part of the answer can be found if we look at the next type of
motivation: collective identity. A stunning 73 percent of the Flemish participants reports
to identify strongly and even very strongly with the people present at the demonstration.
Figures for the March for Unity are comparable, although slightly lower. This means that
a lot of the people present at both demonstrations are there having strong feelings of ingroup solidarity, of belongingness to a group of like-minded citizens. Participating in a
demonstration for these people becomes a goal in itself: being together with other fellow
members of an organization. In a similar vein, we see that a lot of people, both on the
Flemish March and the March for Unity report strong emotional feelings (indignation,
militancy, concern) towards the demonstrations. This too is an indication that both
Flemish and Belgian demonstrators are in the first place there because they first of all
want to show something, express their feelings and opinions, rather than effectively
change something. The interesting thing is that, although the Flemish March and the
March for Unity have diametrically opposing claims, the underlying motivational
rationale for both protesting constituencies seems to be much alike.
244
Instrumentality
Total
Collective
identity
Table 7. Motivations (in %)
Flemish
March
Little success
52
Moderate
22
Very successful
26
100
Weak
Moderate
Strong
Total
Anger
Emotions
(means on a scale Concern
of 1 to 7)
Fear
Sadness
Indignation
Militancy
N
March for
Unity
32
33
35
100
4
10
23
73
100
4.6
4.9
2.1
2.4
5.3
6.2
235
27
63
100
2.7
5.2
3.5
3.8
4.3
4.7
221
3.2. COMPARISON 2: CENTRIFUGAL REGIONALISM HAVING AN IMPACT
ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Just like for the previous comparison, we will now discuss the “who”, “how” and “why”
of several different national demonstrations each time comparing Flemings with
Walloons. The division between Flemings and Walloons we make here, however, is
imperfect as we only can make a difference in terms of the language they speak. Unlike
the previous two demonstrations we cannot make a distinction according to the place
where one lives. However, language is probably the best proxy to distinguish between the
two regions and the corresponding public, economic and political spheres. The general
question we want to address in this section is whether the Flemings and Walloons,
walking together in the same demonstration, also share similar features in terms of who
they are, how they got to the demonstration, and why they participated. We will compare
across three kinds of issues to increase the generalizability of the results: new social
movement issues (e.g. antiwar and climate change), old social movement issues (e.g.
massive redundancies and purchasing power), and new emotional issues (e.g. random
violence). Before we turn to the results, we first present a Table with an overview of the
distribution of Flemings and Walloons across the different demonstrations under study.
245
Dutch
French
Total
N
Table 8. Language across five demonstrations (in %)
Climate
VW
Purchasing March
Antiwar
Change
Vorst
Power
for Joe
NSM
NSM
OSM
OSM
NEM
67
58
50
62
42
33
42
50
38
58
100
100
100
100
100
316
189
272
124
437
Total
54
46
100
1338
As Table 8 reveals, there is slight dominance of Dutch-speaking activists at the different
national demonstrations we studied, except for the March for Joe (which was about a
youngster killed in Brussels Central Station, hence probably mobilizing much in the
capital itself) and the union mobilization VW Vorst, where equal proportions of Frenchspeaking and Dutch-speaking activists were present.
Table 9. Socio-demographics (in %)
NL
PurchaMarch
sing
for Joe
Power
FR NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR
61
39.4
6.9
36
18
6
15
47
56
58
66
65
64
77
41
43
39.0 39.2 42.8 45.4 45.4 49.9 50.0 43.9 44.5
6.9 7.0 7.1 5.4 5.9 5.8 5.7 6.4 6.2
32
46
47
74
69
68
66
42
49
12
16
20
10
4
8
6
14
9
9
8
9
4
10
7
4
8
8
16
8
11
8
10
7
19
15
15
Climate
Change
Antiwar
Sex
Age
Education
Occupation
Other/missing
Total
N
% male
mean
mean
Full time
Part time
Unemployed
Retired
Husband/
housewife
Student
VW
Vorst
1
1
2
1
1
2
4
2
6
6
21
3
100
28
2
100
16
4
100
8
4
100
2
1
100
2
3
100
0
6
100
0
3
100
14
1
100
10
3
100
Who?
First we will discuss some general socio-demographic features of Flemings and Walloons
participating in various demonstrations. Generally, the demonstrations we covered are
dominantly male, except for the March for Joe where on average slightly more women
did participate. Union mobilizations are by far the most masculine ones, which seems
logical taking into account the specific mobilization potential unions draw from.
Differences between the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking community at these
demonstrations are small, except for the Antiwar demonstration where significant more
female French-speaking activist were present. In terms of age, education, and
246
occupational status there are no significant differences between the Flemings and
Walloons.
How?
Looking at how Flemings and Walloons were mobilized for the various demonstrations in
our dataset, some more interesting results come up. Like in the first comparison we make
a difference between the protest companion during the march, the information channel
about the demonstration, and the experience one has with previous mobilizations. In
terms of company, one interesting finding is that French-speaking activists are in most
demonstrations more likely to show up alone, and far less in company with co-members
of an organization. Also in terms of information channels, French-speaking activists were
less likely to have heard about the demonstration through organizational channels. An
exception is of course the March for Joe where organizations in general are completely
absent. But, for the other demonstration, and especially the most organizationally
embedded union mobilizations, these figures might indicate that mobilization dynamics
in both regions slightly differ from each other. It seems that Walloon activist are less
formally and organizationally embedded than Flemish activists. This might also explain
why much more Flemings are present than Walloons (see Table 8), as networks and
especially formal networks are crucial elements for successful mobilization attempts.
Table 10. Protest company (in %)
Are you at this
demonstration…?
Alone
With partner and/or family
With friends and/or
acquaintances
With colleagues and/or costudents
With fellow members of an
organization
PurchaMarch
sing
for Joe
Power
NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR
Antiwar
Climate
Change
VW
Vorst
7
16
28
16
7
13
13
22
4
5
17
13
0
10
13
13
24
46
21
49
19
23
17
27
2
6
4
6
24
22
3
4
6
6
5
21
5
13
3
4
55
29
57
32
84
43
81
55
3
4
100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Total
211 102 108 79 135 136 77 47 182 252
N
Note: originally respondents could check multiple answers. Here only the most formal
category was used. Thus, if a respondent indicated both ‘partner’ and ‘members’, only
the latter category was used.
247
Table 11. Information channel (multiple response) (in %)
PurchaAnti- Climate
VW
sing
war
Change Vorst
Power
NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR
21 28 27 29 72 79 61 36
TV, newspapers, radio
39 40 45 35 31 31 44 21
Family, friends, colleagues
65 41 62 63 55 35 68 38
Websites, e-mail
44 40 50 25 33 28 60 23
Posters/flyers, ads
Members (magazines) of an
61 39 71 59 74 43 81 83
organization
207 100 109 78 134 136 77 47
N
Note: Percentages are based on respondents.
March
for Joe
NL FR
97
21
7
2
94
24
10
2
3
6
183 250
Finally, in terms of protest experience we do not find very large differences. We would
expect, regarding the previous results, that French-speaking activists are less experienced
than Flemings, but this is not the case, on the contrary. In all demonstrations, except for
the March for Joe, most activists are very experienced.
Table 12. Protest experience (multiple response) (in %)
PurchaAnti- Climate
VW
March
sing
war
Change Vorst
for Joe
Power
NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR
2
4
17 9
13 12 1
9
29 21
First time
23
18
32
31
26
28
27
17
44 57
2 - 5 times
18 17 21 19 18 18 33 13 14 10
6 - 10 times
More than 10
times
Total
N
57
61
30
41
43
42
39
61
13
12
100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
211 103 108 79 133 137 77 47 182 253
Why?
Finally we look at three motivational aspects that might differ for Flemish or Walloon
activists. Both Dutch- as well as French speaking activists at new social movement
demonstrations (antiwar and climate change), are not very instrumentally motivated: the
majority believes that the demonstration will not help in changing something. At the old
social movement demonstrations and the March for Joe, people are a bit more optimistic.
Flemish activists at the two union mobilizations are the most optimistic, while this is the
other way around at the March for Joe. In terms of collective identity, we only have data
for three demonstrations. As among the people participating at the Flemish March and the
March for Unity (Table 7), we see that most respondents moderately and even strongly
identify with the other people present at the demonstration. In-group solidarity is an
important motivator for people to participate in massive protest demonstrations. Finally,
we have a list of several emotions. Generally, these figures point out that emotions play
an important role. There are only limited differences between Dutch-speaking and
248
French-speaking activists. At the new social movement demonstrations Flemish activists
seem to be a little more concerned, while French-speaking activists at the two union
demonstrations experience a little more fear. In sum, there are no fundamental different
patterns to be found in terms of motivations between Flemings and Walloon at various
demonstrations.
Table 13. Motivations (in %)
PurchaMarch
sing
for Joe
Power
NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR NL FR
Antiwar
Instrumentali Little
success
ty
Moderate
Very
successful
Total
Collective
Weak
identity
Moderate
Strong
Total
Anger
Emotions
(means on a
Concern
scale
of 1 to 7)
Fear
Sadness
Indignation
Militancy
N
Climate
Change
VW
Vorst
64
72
53
59
46
47
34
41
42
30
26
22
32
25
18
36
29
26
25
31
10
6
15
16
36
17
37
33
33
39
100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
5
11
12
44 49
51 40
100 100
5.2 5.2 3.6
5.6 4.7 6.2
3.2
3.7
6.0
5.0
208
3.2
4.4
5.7
4.9
100
3.2
3.6
5.1
5.6
107
21
33
21
4.1
5.4
39 32
49 47
100 100
5.1 5.0 4.5
6.2 6.1 6.3
4.7
5.8
45 40
22 39
100 100
4.6 4.8
5.7 5.6
3.7
4.2
5.2
5.7
76
4.1
3.9
5.7
5.7
131
4.6
5.0
4.6
6.5
46
3.8
5.0
5.8
4.3
182
5.2
5.2
5.7
5.7
135
3.3
4.6
4.0
6.1
76
4.6
6.3
6.0
4.9
251
4. CONCLUSION
Now let us return to the general question we started this contribution with: do dynamics
of centrifugal regionalism have an impact on civil society? If we look at dynamics of
centrifugal regionalism as a political movement, what kind of movements do we have and
how do they differ from each other? For this question we systematically compared
participants at a Flemish March, demanding more autonomy for the Flemish region, with
participants at the March for Unity, a more spontaneous movement struggling for more
interregional solidarity. Second, we wondered whether dynamics of centrifugal
regionalism also had an effect on civil society itself. Therefore we systematically
compared Flemish with Walloon activists in various national protest demonstrations. We
explored whether the existing regionalization has also led to different mobilization
dynamics and protesting constituencies in either the Flemish or the Walloon region.
249
Regarding the first comparison between the Flemish March and the March for
Unity, we find important differences. The most compelling difference is probably the
organizational embeddedness of the activists: the “Flemish” activists were mobilized via
organizations and were also in company of co-members of an organization during the
march. They had a lot of protest experience. Participants at the March for Unity on the
other hand had no experience at all, were at the march with family and friends, and heard
about the demonstration via mass media channels. The Flemish March therefore is very
much alike to traditional trade union mobilizations, while the March for Unity has more
similarities with the White Marches of 1996 and the March for Joe. In sum, we have two
nice examples of, on the one hand, a typical “old” social movement — organized by
strong organizations and mobilizing an experienced, male, more homogenous public —
and a “new” movement, floating on spontaneous emotions and engagements, benefiting a
lot of the mass media attention and with a much smaller organizational backbone. Both
events are of course only a snapshot of the efforts and events that are organized by the
Flemish Movement and “Belgian” movement (if we can speak indeed of a movement),
but it seems that there is along this communitarian cleavage also a clear social distinction
between both movements.
Regarding the second comparison we generally found little differences between
the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking community. When social movements in
Belgium mobilize nation-wide, thus when Flemish and Walloon organizations join forces
and take to streets for a common goal or a set of common goals, both the Flemish and
Walloon participants in these demonstrations are very much alike: they share similar
socio-demographic features and they are motivated by the same motivational dynamics
(collective identity, emotions). However, one important difference that was
systematically found across the different demonstrations is that French-speaking activists
are much less organizationally embedded than their Dutch-speaking counterparts. The
results suggest that at the French-speaking side of the language border in Belgium, social
movements seem to operate in a less formal and organizational manner than at the Dutchspeaking side. Also French-speaking activists, much more than their Dutch-speaking
comrades, seem to join demonstrations alone. All this suggest that mobilization dynamics
in Wallonia are indeed slightly different than in Flanders. In terms of mobilization
dynamics we thus might speak—cautiously—of two different traditions.
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251
BEYOND THE TERRITORY: LOCAL MOBILIZATIONS IN NORTHERN
ITALY AGAINST THE HSRL IN VAL DI SUSA AND THE US BASE IN
VICENZA
Gianni Piazza
University of Catania, Faculty of Political Science
1. NEW LOCAL MOBILIZATIONS: NIMBY, LULU, NOPE?
In the last two decades, new local mobilizations have emerged in Italy, in the northern
part as in the rest of the country. They are promoted by local communities and citizens’
committees (della Porta, 2004) opposing - by means of forms of protest - public works
and projects, that they consider damaging for their territories and quality of life
(environment, health, security, etc.).
These types of mobilizations are usually labeled by media, politicians and part of
scientific literature as affected by the “Nimby syndrome” (Not In My Back Yard), that is
associated with a conservative behavior and egotistical resistance to social change. They
are interpreted as the refusal of few inhabitants to pay the necessary costs (in terms of
pollution, security, etc.) to attain public goods (Bobbio, 1999; Buso, 1996): they would
not want infrastructures, landfills, incinerators, military bases, etc., in their territory, but
would be indifferent if these large-scale public works were made somewhere else; in
short, they would say: “let them wherever you want, but not in my house”. In this picture,
citizens who protest are accused to counterpoint their selfish, local and particular interest
to the general interest and the common good, without proposing alternative solutions.
This interpretation of the Nimby syndrome has been contested by activists and
other social and political scientists, observing that “Nimbyist discourses tend to place
residents in an illegitimate position” (Jobert 1998:73). In fact they prefer to define these
phenomena using the acronym LULU to indicate conflicts related to locally unwanted
land use (Popper, 1981; Gould et al., 1996). Some of these scholars go beyond framing
these local mobilizations as spaces for the exercise of active citizenship, because “their
horizon is not always particularistic” (Bobbio, 1999:198); in fact, local committees are
seen as groups of citizen workers that defend the quality of life within their community
(Gould et al., 1996:4) and appeal to universal values (Williams and Matheny, 1995:183).
Empirical research on local conflicts in Italian cities has indeed indicated a complex
reality, with citizens’ committees characterized by a diverse capacity or will to present
their particular claims within a more comprehensive framework (della Porta, 2004:19).
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Local groups of citizens that oppose an unwanted use of territory try to overcome the
stigmatizing Nimby label (Gordon and Jasper, 1996:159), developing a rhetoric that
distances them from accusations of particularism, shifting from a local to a more global
discourse. Faced with those who accuse them of protesting for individual interest (rather
than the common good) they build a NOPE (Not On the Planet Earth) discourse,
affirming not to want disputed works “neither in their own, nor in any other backyard” of
the earth, because they consider those infrastructures as damaging the common good
(Trom, 1999). Moreover, they often define their protest through a procedural rhetoric that
defends their action as opposition to the abuse of power and lack of transparency in
public decision-making, as well as the collusive alliance between government and
entrepreneurial interests (Gordon and Jasper, 1996).
Therefore, many of these conflicts are only seemingly localized and/or
environmentalist; large infrastructures, the protesting local populations also consider
polluting plants, bases and military installations to be socially and economically harmful
and not only for the environment and health; protest actors are not only local inhabitants
and, moreover, they intertwine themselves with other non local players, building
networks that go beyond territorial dimension and showing propositional and not just
reactive capacity. The reach of mobilizations begins extra-local and global in some cases.
Thus, these mobilizations originate locally, but then cross other territories and are
increasingly intertwined with other similar protests and with Global Justice and No War
Movements, claiming alternative solutions and alternative model of development (della
Porta and Piazza, 2008a; 2008b). In this sense, they became “trans-territorial”
mobilizations (Piazza, 2008; 2009).
My contribution will be focused on the two best-known local “trans-territorial”
mobilizations in Northern Italy: the protest campaign against the construction of a 57 km
tunnel, as a part of TAV (Treno Alta Velocità – High Speed Rail Line) in Val di Susa, in
Piedmont (North-West) close to the border with France; and the mobilization against the
extension of the US military base of Camp Ederle to the Dal Molin airport in Vicenza
(Veneto, North-East). It is based on the updating of my previous researches regarding No
Tav protest (della Porta and Piazza, 2008a; 2008b), and the mobilization in Vicenza
(Piazza, 2009). The empirical cases have been reconstructed through the analysis of the
daily press, documents and websites produced by the activists as sources.
In the following pages, the two Lulu mobilizations will be briefly reported,
describing their chronological development, the actors involved, their claims and
repertoires of action. Then, after shortly discussing Nimby interpretation and the local
and cross-territorial protest networks, my attention will be focused on their framing
processes (della Porta and Diani, 2006: chap. 3); these processes are conceived here not
only as being important strategic instruments for mobilization, but also as mechanisms of
fundamental importance in the construction of the identity of those who protest (della
Porta and Piazza, 2008b). In fact, I shall highlight the definition of the identity of
protesters and their definition of what is at stake, stressing the emergence of a new
conception of territory and local community, very different from that of traditional ethnoregional and local parties and movements.
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2. NO TAV MOBILIZATION IN VAL DI SUSA
The No Tav protest campaign, is a long lasting mobilization. The protest began when the
first information on the decision to build a High Speed Rail Line between Turin, in
Piedmont, and Lyon in France, became public.
In 1990, concurrently with the foundation of a Committee to promote the project,
a Coordination of environmental associations started to criticize it. In fact, the project
foresaw the construction of a 57 km tunnel under the Alps between Val di Susa and the
border with France, and the ecologist groups were worried about the negative impact on
the environment of the valley and the health of the citizens, due to the risks related to soil
erosion and the presence of asbestos powder inside the mountain to be drilled. Thus
began a very long phase of incubation of the protest, marked by initiatives by the
environmental groups Habitat to inform the affected population by organizing weekly
meetings involving citizens of Val di Susa, ecologist activists and counter-experts.
Almost immediately, the mobilization from below found support in the local institutions from the mayors of the involved towns to the Comunità Montana (mountain community)
of the lower Val di Susa (della Porta and Piazza, 2008b:13-15).
It is above all from 2000 that the mobilization grew, in the first place in the valley.
From 2003, No Tav committees mobilized the local community, involving all the
different social actors present in the valley. If the No Tav actions remained for a long
time mainly in the valley and concentrated on the theme of defence of the environment
and health, already in 2000 there were consolidated contacts with collective actors
mobilized on different themes, as well as with actors external to the valley. First of all,
new groups, beyond those of local residents and environmental associations joined
together (squatted social centres, rank-and-file unions, farmers’ associations, social
forum, etc.), and the protestors became more and more networked. In this process, the
theme of the Tav began to intertwine with social themes and, in general, the discourse of
protest tended to extend itself. In this phase, the mobilization was also promoted by the
local committees, rooted in the territory, even with different characteristics, either those
focused on the theme of the high-speed trains, or those more political. At the same time,
with the intensification of institutional decisions on the Tav, the activism of the
institutional Committee of mayors and the mountain community in turn also intensified.
At the beginning of 2005, with the decision of the authorities to carry out the first
checks on the territory in spite of the opposition of the mayors and the two mountain
communities, a new phase emerges, characterized by a protest which increasingly goes
beyond a local dimension. Above all, the violence of the police intervening to evict the
occupants at the picket of the checking site, on the 1st of November, gave a national
dimension to the protests in the valley. National press coverage of the event and public
attention remained high in that period, characterized by the “militarization” of the valley,
on the one hand, and by a series of rail and road blockades by the No Tav, on the other
hand. In December, the No Tav protest spread throughout Italy and solidarity
demonstrations were held in Milan, Palermo, Naples, Bologna, Venice, Florence and
Genoa (Repubblica, 7-8/12/05). With regard to the demonstration of 17th of December in
Turin (50,000 people), national press wrote that “the change is in the organized
participation of the Italian movements”, pointing out also the presence of French mayors
opposed to the Tav (Repubblica, 18/12/05). In fact, even the transnational dimension of
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the protest was gradually growing in strength: already in February 2008 a delegation of
politicians from Val di Susa had participated in a session of the European Parliament
denouncing the violation of the European Environmental Directive (Repubblica,
18/12/04), and then in January 2006 Valsusini committees took part in a No Tav
demonstration in Chambéry, France (Repubblica, 7/1/06). It is in this period, between the
end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, that the No Tav struggle welded together with the
campaign against the Bridge on the Messina Straits, forming the No Tav-No Bridge
twinning. In fact, in January 2006, there was the participation of No Bridge activist in Val
di Susa at the Public Forum “for the Defence and the Life of the Valley”, and of No Tav
committees in Messina at the national demonstration against the Bridge. This presence
was emphasized by the national and local newspapers, which wrote in their headlines: “in
15,000 against the Bridge and the Tav”, “And in Messina is born the Bridge of No”
(Repubblica, 23/1/06).
The acute stage of the conflict ended with the partial success of the Tav
opponents, the temporary suspension of works in June 2006, and the starting of technical
studies and negotiation tables between experts and national government representatives,
on the one hand, and counter-experts and local politicians, on the other one (Technical
Observatory). The No Tav reclaimed as a victory the removal of building sites in Venaus,
but the political solution of the matter was open yet (della Porta and Piazza, 2008b:1722). After the electoral victory of the centre-left in April 2006, the new government
maintained an ambiguous position, affirming the centrality of the high-speed project
while it was seeking an agreement with the local population. This ambiguity reflected the
differentiation of positions and attitudes between the two lefts that formed government
and majority, the Tav continuing to be a reason for conflict between them during the term
of the legislature. In the meanwhile, in summer 2006 No Tav committees, and other
committees and networks opposing unwanted land use in other Italian regions, formed the
“Patto Nazionale di Solidarietà e Mutuo Soccorso” (Mutual Aid and National Solidarity
Pact), aimed at supporting each other and giving visibility to No Lulu mobilizations.
The implementation of the high-speed in Val di Susa remained on the government
agenda, although the building sites were not reopened during the two years of the
legislature and negotiation tables between governmental representatives and local
politicians went on. Nevertheless, the protest campaign continued, even if at low
intensity; it was above all promoted by No Tav committees that organized a national
demonstration in April 2007, without the radical left parties (Repubblica, 1/4/07), after
the high-speed line was put on the new government agenda composed by twelve
priorities.1 Subsequently, the proposal to purchase land around the building sites was
launched by No Tav committees to Valsusini, with the aim of making the procedures for
expropriation more difficult.
After the fall of Prodi government, the electoral triumph of the centre-right
coalition occurred in April 2008: the new Berlusconi government reaffirmed its intention
1
Notwithstanding their opposition to the TAV, the radical left parties belonging to the
Prodi government accepted the implementation of the High Speed Railway in Val di Susa
as one of the twelve issues of the new political agenda, after overcoming the government
crisis in February 2007 (see par. 3); they preferred to be part of the centre-left
government rather than being consistent with their programmes and, for that reason, were
no longer accepted in the No Tav demonstrations.
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to go ahead with Tav implementation and restarted the policy process. In June, the
negotiations within the Technical Observatory were concluded with an agreement
between government representatives and Val di Susa mayors, allowing the building of the
high-speed line; No Tav committees and non institutional groups opposed the agreement,
creating a split between local administrations and the other protest actors (Repubblica,
29-30/6/08). The reopening of the building sites is planned for November 2009 (Il Sole
24ore, 18/10/09) and the mobilization goes on.
3. NO DAL MOLIN MOBILIZATION IN VICENZA
The protest campaign against the extension of the US base of Camp Ederle to the Dal
Molin airport in Vicenza is more recent than the No Tav mobilization. In fact, it started in
the second part of 2006, when the 2004 secret agreement between the Berlusconi
government and the US Administration, with the consent of the mayor Hullweck (Forza
Italia), became public (Repubblica, 26/10/06).
The mobilization was initially promoted by No Dal Molin spontaneous citizens’
committees that were supported by the majority of local population;2 they asked for a
citizen referendum and organized various protest actions. The initial frames of the
citizens’ committees were mainly based on the defence of public health and environment,
endangered by the increase of air, water, noise pollution and electromagnetic radiation
that the extension of the US base, close to the centre of the city, would cause; moreover,
they were worried about the negative economic impact of the building works on the
inhabitants (Altravicenza, 2007). Anyway, the joining of other actors to the protest
networks extended soon the frames to other issues: the right of local population to decide
the use of their land, the denial of war, of US and Nato bases and the refusal of the
militarization of the territory (No Dal Molin, 2009a). The Vicentini protesters received
indeed the active support of peace movement, anarchist and radical antagonist groups,
and the social centers of the North-East (ex-Disobedients); moreover, Cgil union
(especially FIOM)3, radical left parties (PRC – Refoundation Communist Party, PdCI –
Italian Communists Party, Greens) became part of the alliance system, participating in the
mobilization and asking the Prodi government (to which they belonged) not to allow the
expansion of the US base. Therefore, the No Dal Molin mobilization went almost
immediately beyond the Nimby logics, because the involved actors were not only local
ones, as citizens’ committees, but also groups and associations with universalistic
identities (pacifists, environmentalists, unions, antagonistic and radical lefts); and
because the frames of protesters extended from local to global, transforming the
mobilization from Nimby to Nope with pacifist and antimilitaristic claims. In fact, No
Dal Molin do not want military bases either in their own or in any other “backyard”,
addressing immediately supranational and national government levels.
2
According to a Demos survey, in December 2006, 61% of Vicentini was against the
enlargement of the US base and 84% asked for a citizens’ referendum (Repubblica,
3/12/06).
3
The Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro is the main Italian union (leftoriented) and FIOM is the section of CGIL composed by workers in the engineering
industry.
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The choice of Prodi government “not to oppose the expansion of US base in
Vicenza” (Repubblica, 16/1/07) led to the escalation of the reaction of No Dal Molin and
radical left parties, which came to threaten the coherence of the majority in parliament. In
fact, between January and February 2007, the conflict reached its peak both in the streets
and in Parliament. On the first side, No Dal Molin diversified their repertoire of protest:
they occupied the railway station in Vicenza, set up the permanent picket (presidio)
before the contested airport and held a sit-in in front of the Parliament; then, they
promoted the national march of February 17, involving peacefully through the streets of
Vicenza about 200,000 people, among which stood out a large delegation of No Tav
committees (Repubblica, 18/2/07). The demonstration marked the definitive exit from the
local dimension of No Dal Molin campaign, that acquired an (inter)national extent,
becoming a symbol for other No Lulu mobilizations and the movement against the war;
the Vicenza protest then linked to these movements and joined in the national networks
(Mutual Aid Pact, No War movement).
On the institutional side, despite the hard conflict between moderate and radical
members of the majority, the radical left parties at the end voted almost compactly the
motions presented by the government. The Prodi government was nevertheless defeated
twice in the Senate and forced to resign momentarily (Repubblica, 21/2/07). After the
renewal of confidence in the Prodi government by the centre-left majority (including the
radical left) and the confirmation of the decision to extend the US base, No Dal Molin
mobilization continued with the permanent picket in front of the airport and the
participation in the No Tav march in Val di Susa on 1 April (Repubblica, 1/4/07). The
explicit rift between No Dal Molin and the institutional radical left was sanctioned by
their participation to the national march against the visit of Bush in Rome, on 9 June; the
demonstration was promoted by “No War” movement, social centres and grass-roots
unions, in contrast with the rally in Piazza del Popolo, on the same day, organized by
radical left parties (Repubblica, 9/6/07). In November, construction works started inside
the airport. No Dal Molin protesters organized immediately road blockades and a
“European 3 days of actions” (Repubblica, 14-16/12/07), a series of debates and initiative
against the militarization of territories with the participation of activists from across
Europe; on 15 December, 80,000 people participated to the final demonstration.
In Spring 2008, the defeat of the centre-left parties at the national level was
unexpectedly accompanied by the contemporary victory in Vicenza municipal elections
of Mayor Variati (PD –Democrat Party), who had always expressed his dissent against
the previous government's decision (Repubblica, 2/5/08). The civic list No Dal Molin,
with its 5%, was decisive in the election of the new mayor, and he indeed adhered to
juridical appeal against the base, reaffirming the need for a referendum on the subject
(Vicenza per il PD 2008). After the electoral victory, Berlusconi’s new government
reassured immediately US administration on the enlargement of the base in Vicenza,
despite the regional administrative court (TAR) had accepted the appeal of the
consumers’ association “Codacons” for a suspension of works; in the meantime, No Dal
Molin participated with a large delegation in the demonstration of 1 June in Chiaiano
(Naples), in solidarity with the anti-dump protests (Repubblica, 2/6/08).4 Subsequently,
4
In the Spring 2008, the decision of the National government to build a landfill in the
quarries located in the district of Chaiano (Naples) triggered the reaction and the
mobilization of the inhabitants, who were worried about public health and the
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the mobilization radicalized again in Vicenza, in the aftermath of the ruling of the
Council of State that revoked the order of the TAR, accepting the government’s appeal;
No Dal Molin occupied the tracks of the railway station at the end of a candlelight vigil,
and protesters were severely charged by police (Repubblica, 31/7/08). Finally, the
Council of State rejected the referendum called by the municipal authorities for October
5, but the consultation took place anyway, albeit unofficially, showing a clear affirmation
of Vicenza citizens against the expansion of the base (Repubblica, 1-6/10/08).
No Dal Molin protests are going on in 2009 with various direct actions in
February, such as the partial occupation of the civil airport and the road blockades to
prevent the entry of trucks into the US base (Repubblica, 1-9/2/09). On 23 April a
delegation of No Dal Molin committees was heard by the Committee on Military
Construction of the US Congress in Washington, setting out its reasons and denouncing
the lack of an environmental permit for the building works (No Dal Molin, 2009a). On 4
July (the Independence Day in US) No Dal Molin claimed the “Independence of Vicenza
from US”, promoting a national demonstration with 15,000 participants; during the
march, police blocked the road and charged the demonstrators who defended the
demonstration with Plexiglass shields (Repubblica, 5/7/09). In September, mayor Variati
publicly stated that “there are no other passable ways of opposing the installation of the
base”, asking the government for compensation and, consequently, was accused by No
Dal Molin committees to “show the white flag” (No Dal Molin, 2009a). Therefore,
governments at different levels continue to answer negatively to the claims coming from
local territory. Notwithstanding the change of Administration from Bush to Obama, the
Italian and US policy regarding Camp Ederle base is not modified, and the mobilization
continues.
4. THE ACTORS: LOCAL AND CROSS-TERRITORIAL NETWORKS
It is easy to perceive from the chronological reconstructions of the two protest
campaigns, that a Nimby interpretation does not fit to explain the nature of these conflicts
and mobilizations.
First, Nimby syndrome is contradicted by the definition the actors themselves
provide for their actions; in a document, No Dal Molin committees underline that
“Vicenza is not a Nimby movement because it has been able to set local and practical
claims back on a general and abstract level: defending our territory we learnt to
appreciate the value of land and common goods, refusing the military base we built a
peace culture, suffering the impositions we experimented the importance of
participation” (No Dal Molin, 2009c:2). This and other statements, in which these
movements distances themselves from Nimby syndrome, could be seen as a rhetoric
device to gain legitimacy without altering their nature, as many critics argue;
nevertheless, the characteristics of these mobilizations show that a Nimby interpretation
results from poor knowledge or from ideological bias aimed at the delegitimization of
opponents. If Nimby conflicts are local, in the cases studied the reach of the protests
involves multiple territorial levels of governance, not only local and regional, but also
environment. Local citizens’ committees obtained immediately the solidarity of the other
Italian No Lulu movements, especially from No Dal Molin committees.
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national and international (EU for No Tav, relationships between US and Italian
governments for No Dal Molin). Furthermore, according to the Nimby syndrome only
local inhabitants should be interested and motivated in the protest because directly
damaged by public works, whereas in our mobilizations the networked organization of
the conflict includes many non-local actors that should not be affected at all by disputed
infrastructures.
Local players are obviously crucial for mobilization: the citizens’ committees are
always the main actors and represent, with their flexible organizational structure, the new
form of political participation for “ordinary” citizens who increasingly mistrust parties.
The participation of citizens in the two mobilizations is strongly representative of the
local population, as confirmed by empirical research and newspaper reportages; for
instance, the No Tav demonstrations are indeed described as characterized by a ”thousand
voices” of teachers, housewives, pensioners, workers, and the picketing on the building
sites as “an unlikely army composed of entire families, young and old” (Repubblica,
1/11/05; della Porta and Piazza, 2008b:15-16);5 the same in respect of No Dal Molin
protest, supported by tens of thousands of Vicenza citizens, who massively participated in
several demonstrations, and voted at the unofficial referendum called by the Town: 95%
out of the 25,000 voters.6 Mayors and local institutions (centre-left administrations) are
also involved in the mobilizations, although recently criticized for their compliance and
pliability, but other collective actors with universal identities and extra local dimension
are included in the protest networks: environmental associations, squatted social centres,
grassroots militant unions, pacifist and antimilitarist groups, and radical left parties
(although the presence of parties caused tensions and a breakdown during the centre-left
Prodi government).
Moreover, the local protest networks are linked with the other Lulu mobilizations
both in northern and southern Italy. First, No Tav committees made a “North-South
twinning” with No Bridge networks that oppose the project of a bridge between Calabria
and Sicily, participating with a massive delegation to the national demonstration in
Messina, on January 2006; then, in the summer of that year, they both contributed to the
formation of the “Mutual Aid and National Solidarity Pact”, aimed at supporting each
other and giving visibility to all Lulu conflicts in Italy. The Pact is more a network with a
shared identity than a strategic alliance, because participants have a common frame: it is
based on the connection between the conception of territory as “common goods” not to
commodify, and the demand for participative democracy, as well the assertion of
autonomy from governments and parties of “every colour”, including left-wing ones
(Patto Nazionale di Solidarietà e Mutuo Soccorso, 2009). Later, also No Dal Molin joined
the Pact, as well as many other similar mobilizations. This national network indeed
includes currently more than 150 citizens’ committees, networks and associations,
5
Considering that the population of the Val di Susa is about 90,000, 80,000 people
participated in the 10 km demonstration from Bussoleno to Seghino on 16 November
2005 (della Porta and Piazza, 2008b:18; Repubblica, 17/1105).
6
Exactly 24,094 citizens of Vicenza out of 84,340 eligible voters (29%) participated in
the referendum, and 22,889 voters expressed opposition to the base enlargement (No Dal
Molin, 2009a); furthermore, considering the inhabitants of Vicenza are about 100,000,
the local rallies were attended from 15,000 to 30,000 people (Repubblica, 5/7/09;
2/12/06) and the national demonstration by 200,000 participants (Repubblica, 18/2/07).
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showing how this type of conflicts is widespread all over the country; if almost half of
these Lulu committees (67) are located in northern Italy, the others are more or less
proportionally distributed in the remaining part of the country, proving in this way that
the phenomenon is not linked to a particular region. Another important North-South
solidarity relationship, always within the National Pact, was established in 2008 between
No Dal Molin committees and those who oppose the building of a dump in the Chiaiano
neighborhood of Naples. The presence of these non local actors and the formation of
trans-territorial networks, as constant elements of the protests, are therefore crucial in
framing these mobilizations as not affected by Nimby syndrome. In addition, most of
these committees and networks participated to demonstrations and events of Global
Justice and No War movements.
5. THE IDENTITY:
TERRITORY
STRUGGLING
COMMUNITIES
BEYOND
THE
A fundamental element for mobilization is the definition of the identity of protesters, who
share values and interests: the “us” opposed to the “them” (Gamson, 1988); and, in these
cases, the peculiar conception of community and territory.
A central theme in the discourse of new local mobilizations regards the territorial
scale of the contention. The local dimension is stigmatized by supporters of large-scale
public works as egotistical, but those who protest frequently underline a communitarian
defence of a limited territory, that is suffering from external aggression. If No Tav
identify as a target “all those who want to destroy Val di Susa” (leaflet cit. in della Porta
and Piazza, 2008b:59), No Dal Molin in Vicenza claim their independence from what
they call the ‘US empire’; in fact, in an appeal of the Permanent Picket, they write: “We
want our independency from the US military empire, freeing our land from a new war
base” (No Dal Molin, 2009b:1).
While this dimension of defence of the community is linked to the identification
with the territory, with a stress on its natural, historical, political and cultural
particularities (della Porta, 2004), the visions projected of territories by the activists are
increasingly open in the mobilizations, and protest actors construct images of ‘open’ and
inclusive spaces rather than “closed” courtyard.
Previous research underlined that pre-existing identity resources favour
mobilization. Above all in Val di Susa, in the definition of local identity the reference to
the history of the partisan Resistance against the Nazi occupation is significant. In fact,
the partisan past is often evoked, as in the testimonies of the will to “resist” shown by the
inhabitants of Val di Susa, giving a sense of continuity to the struggle in the valley and
connecting it to shared values. Here the words of an activist: “When we were on the
mountains, waiting for they arrive, singing ‘Bella Ciao’ and stopping them, beh yes, in
that moment we felt … sons, grandchildren of those who made the Resistance, that has
always been strong in this valley. Here there has always been a ‘red thread’ that
connects No Tav to Resistance” (interview cit. in della Porta and Piazza, 2008a:87-88).
The partisans are recalled in the logo within the No Tav banner; in particular “the old
man with the closed fist has been invented by the committee of Bussoleno and remembers
the grandfather who fought in the Resistance and who shouted ‘You will not pass here’”
(interview cit. in della Porta and Piazza, 2008b:60). In a similar manner there is a
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reference to the tradition of social struggles of railway workers: the histories of the
railways and of Resistance are intertwined in the description of the fighting spirit of
Valsusino people.
Differently from Val di Susa, a territory with a tradition of “red sub-culture”, the
mobilization in Vicenza, within the “white” (catholic) Veneto region, marks a
discontinuity with a past poor of protests and unconventional participation, as the same
activists underline in a document: “Vicenza has never been in past years a land of
movements… it has been defined the ‘Sacristy of Italy’, characterized by a massive
adhesion to the Christian Democrat Party and by an industriousness bias that has often
sacrificed politics and sociality. Vicentino movement … comes to terms with this past of
political moderation and poor mobilization, but it represents a discontinuity with decades
of conformism” (No Dal Molin, 2009c:1).
Therefore, the mobilizations lead to a re-definition of the identity of the
community. The symbolic construction of community and the formation of identity
occur, above all, during the course of protests; the sense of belonging is perceived as built
in action, through the participation to the mobilization, rather than ascribed criteria. A No
Tav activist indeed says: “We needed an identity and maybe we found it during the
struggle, on the idea that the territory is ours: this struggle is strong because it comes
from a choice, not because the valley was of our fathers and grandfathers” (interview cit.
in della Porta and Piazza, 2008a:89).
The identity of “struggling communities” is the result of processes of “crossfertilization in action”, that is, the transformation of and in the actors – individuals and
organizations – involved in the protest networks, that are formed during the course, and
as a result of mobilization; it occurs thanks to the presence of multiple membership in
various groups, as well as an intense process of “networking” (both formal and informal).
No Dal Molin committees call this process “transversality”; in a document they write:
“with the term ‘transversality’ we do not simply want to indicate a sum of different
identities which strategically ally among them to achieve a common goal, maintaining
unchanged their own boundaries and differences. For us ‘transversality’ means breaking
the boundaries, building a terrain of dialogue which is able to create a collective growth
and cross-fertilization between different practices… It is the reason why we like to define
us ‘community’: our acting, in fact, is not ideology-oriented, but toward a daily making
which creates common sensitiveness and, consequently, a new culture having, among its
main points, the refusal of war, the defence of common goods, the construction of new
forms of participation. These three points were not taken for granted when we started our
path: it has been a process of collective growth, of reasoning and confrontation which
made these issues a common heritage” (No Dal Molin, 2009c:1).
The identification with community is then not exclusive; on the contrary an open
and inclusive conception of community emerges through the protest, that is able to
integrate different cultures and values, as confirmed in the words of a No Tav activist:
“This idea of a territory that has taken people from outside, has led to different cultures,
not a pre-structured culture, but a various set … this valley has allowed people who came
to live here feel it like its own” (interview cit. in della Porta and Piazza, 2008a:90). The
appeal of activists to “defend territory as a precious common good for everyone and not
just for the community that resides in it” (Assemblea contro le Grandi Opere, 2006),
recalls this open image of territories, and sees protesters defend their value of use
(“precious common good”) against the value of exchange (“resource to exploit and
262
violate”), emphasized by the promoters of public works and their economic interests. The
identification of many residents with the use value of the territory occurs through a
process of giving symbolic significance to the conflict; in the course of protest there
emerges a positive conception of communitarian identity that recalls universal values, as
well as a definition of the conflict that extends from local to global level, with the claim
to be defending the “common good” against the particularistic advantages promised by
the promoters of projects. The two Lulu movements reject the accusations of Nimbyism
advanced by the supporters of public works and instead identify the community as a
value, but without making it an objective of exclusive identification, and territory as
common resource, that should not be the object of exclusive ownership.
Therefore, the conceptions of local “struggling communities” as open and
inclusive spaces and of territories as “common goods” for everybody, and not only for the
residents, are very far from the traditional images of closed and egotistical community
and territory hostile towards outsiders, provided by localistic movements and ethnoregional parties in Northern Italy, above all the Lega Nord. It is no coincidence that this
party is not well accepted by protest actors.
6. WHAT IS AT STAKE?
The definition of what is at stake in these conflicts – above all in Val di Susa - supersedes
the classic dichotomy between environmental defence and economic development,
proposing instead an alternative model of progress.
These struggles are viewed by participants not only as the defence of environment
and the well-being of its citizens, but also as being oriented towards a future model of
development radically different from that proposed by the promoters of these public
works; this model of economic development is criticized by protesters for being a single
model focused on large-scale investments, exclusively concerned with the interests of
investors, the logic of profit, the exploitation of common goods for private use and, in the
case of Vicenza, also with the interest of Us government and army.
In fact, to the accusations of wanting to block “public works”, which are
“strategic” for local and global economic development, and for inter/national security,
protesters in Val di Susa and in Vicenza respond by presenting these projects not only as
damaging from the point of view of environment, public health and security, but also
from the point of view of economic progress. If these projects are defined as being ‘costfree’, because they are presented as externally financed, by private companies or foreign
governments, the opponents underline instead the waste of public money, and crucially
suggest alternative uses for these resources, like the modernizing of the old railway in Val
di Susa and the civil use of the airport in Vicenza.
Therefore, these protest campaigns cannot be described as purely reactive in
opposing decisions “taken elsewhere”, but also constructive through the specific
proposals they advance, which are oriented towards what activists define as an
“alternative notion of development, based on the real needs of a territory and its
population, on the concern for the common good and the growth of social solidarity”
(Assemblea contro le Grandi Opere, 2006), as well as the development of locally rooted
economies. This model, really only a rough outline, recalls the theories of “dedevelopment” and “ungrowth” (Latouche, 2007), based on defence of the environment,
263
“good” employment, quality of life in the territory and a critique of consumption,
synthesized in the slogan “consume less, consume better”; with an increasingly “radical
criticism of the current model of development”, the alternative notion proposed by
activist calls for a “low-speed life”, as in another widespread slogan: “Who goes slowly,
goes far and safe. We don’t want the high speed train”.
It is thus the conception of general interest which is at the centre of these
symbolic conflicts. While the promoters of the projects present them as the pursuit of the
general interest of the national (and international) community, the activists reject the
accusations of egotism (typical of the Nimby syndrome) and reverse the charges to
defend particularistic interests. In fact, protestors propose themselves as the true
interpreters of the general interest, while the strategic interests defended by the supporters
of “public works” are presented as being the interests of construction cartels and
companies, “speculators” and “corrupt” in Val di Susa (della Porta and Piazza,
2008b:69), US government and army in Vicenza. In this vision, national governments and
building companies pursuit the political and economic interests of few politicians and
businessmen, damaging the interests not only of local populations, but also of the broader
national and international community. In fact, protesters consider the model of
development and the policies of war, from which the HSRL and the military base stem,
harmful for people in general, and not only for the residents who live in the disputed
territories. This is not the place for a deepened debate on the notion of general interest
and questions as: does an objective definition of general interest exist? Who decides what
general interest is? National governments? and the oppositions? and local governments
and population? Here it is relevant to underline the symbolic conflict which emerges from
these mobilizations, and puts in discussion the same notion of democracy.
As a matter of fact, in the course of mobilizations, the stakes of the conflict
expand to the meta-frames of democracy, as well as to the right to protest. The
development of a meta-discourse on democracy goes beyond the right of local politicians
to represent their territories, criticizing the institutions of representative democracy. In
fact, the lack of democratic procedure in the allocation of public works is denounced by
both No Tav and No Dal Molin activists, as the lack of democracy because of the
militarization of the territory.
Nevertheless, the demand for democracy is, above all, the demand for another
type of democracy, more participative and deliberative, coming “from below”, made by
citizens rather than professionals, based on self-government and citizens’ autonomy. The
rights of the community to decide their own destiny is claimed in the name of the people.
Besides, the frame of violence is utilized in particular by national governments,
with the growth of forms of direct action and a symbolic conflict on the right to
participate in a democracy emerges around the conception of legality. For protesters, the
right to protest is here not only defended as legitimate right, but as ethically central. The
theme of public security is instead defined by opponents as being instrumentalized to
discredit an opposition which has chosen peaceful forms of protest, because the direct
actions are also meant to be non-violent.
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7. SHORT CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, the two Lulu mobilizations No Tav and No Dal Molin are not Nimby, but
Nope and trans-territorial: they go beyond the territory both as geographical entity and as
traditional conception.
In this sense, notwithstanding their historical, political and cultural particularities,
they do not represent a specific type of local or regional phenomenon linked to northern
Italy as the Lega Nord, because they share the same type of actors, identity, frames and
repertoires of action with other similar mobilizations in other Italian regions. These
protest campaigns indeed are networked with other Lulu movements all over Italy,
especially with those in the South. Moreover, the diffusion of these types of mobilizations
is not limited to Italy, but is widespread in Europe and in other continents. For instance,
regarding the protests against the High Speed Rail Line, they are very frequent in Spain,
as confirmed by previous research: “In Spain, the record of conflicts and campaigns
related to transport issues is a very long one. In this list special relevance is held by the
protests against the new High Speed Train projects, mostly in Catalonia, Valencia,
Madrid and Basque Country and the rejection of other infrastructure works such as
building new roads and enlarging airports” (Barcena, 2005:123). And concerning the
mobilization against military bases, they occur even in the USA, as in the case of the
opposition to the expansion of Pinon Canyon base in Colorado (and Vieques in Puerto
Rico); similarly to Vicenza a broad-base and transversal opposition coalition has been
formed there, beginning “with a Nimby movement which then gradually turns into a
movement against the military-industrial complex” (Mangano and Westbrook, 2009:69).
Returning to No Tav and No Dal Molin movements, we can briefly summarize
that:
The evolution from a local to a global definition of the conflict; the elaboration of
images that show alternative conceptions of the general interest, the territory as “common
good”, and the local communities as open and inclusive; the presentation of these actions
of protests as the laboratory for an alternative conception of politics and democracy, as
participative and deliberative; all these processes take place in the course of these
campaigns. This in fact seems to emerge through the adhesion of different actors to the
protest. Committees and local politicians, social centres and trade unions, environmental
associations and peace movements, political parties and ordinary citizens, all tend to
meet, network and bridge their more specific frames in the course of the protest.
Above all, changes in the symbolic construction of identity, the stakes and the
motivations for action, link the protest campaigns in Val di Susa and Vicenza between
them, with other similar mobilizations all over Italy, and with the Global Justice and No
War Movements.
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267
CENTRIFUGAL REGIONALISM IN FLANDERS AND NORTHERN ITALY?
ELEMENTS FOR A COMPARISON
Michel Huysseune
Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
1. AN OVERVIEW AND A COMPARISON
The comparison this volume offers of the dynamics of centrifugal regionalism in Belgium
and Italy reveals a contrasting pattern of similarities and differences. The various
contributions certainly confirm that the issue of centrifugal regionalism has a dimension
of urgency in Belgium that it clearly lacks in Italy, and also offer elements to explain this
difference. Such an explanation is certainly complex and multi-dimensional. Identity is
nevertheless an obvious starting-point for a comparison of the two cases, also because
together with the institutional context identity appears as a crucial dimension that
differentiates Belgium and Italy. Identity-building in Flanders, as Marnix Beyen reminds
us in his contribution, is a consolidated process that expresses a long history of political
mobilization of a community, a process almost entirely absent in northern Italy until the
emergence of regionalist leagues (predecessors of the Lega Nord) in the 1980s. Regional
identities have been institutionalized in Belgium, and identification with Flanders has
undoubtedly reached a culturally and politically hegemonic position in the region. In
northern Italy, on the contrary, mainstream public opinion is clearly not prepared to
accept the Padanian identity the Lega proposes. Crucially, as Gaspare Nevola points out,
northern Italian elites have not given any support to the Lega’s secessionism or to its
ethnic identity construction (although they are prepared to accept the Lega as a partner in
regional and national government coalitions and are accommodating towards the Lega’s
demand for devolution and fiscal federalism). The Lega has been able to mobilize a
constituency in parts of northern Italy, and to give this constituency a collective ethnic
identity. The party has, however, by no means been able to transform this party identity
in the hegemonic collective identity of northern Italy as a whole, as is the case in
Flanders.
In his contribution, however, Marc Hooghe warns us against taking this
consolidated identity too much for granted. The claim for a united cultural identity is
rhetorically affirmed but rarely analyzed. Although the language issue has undoubtedly
played an essential role in the process of creation and consolidation of Flemish identity,
Hooghe observes that nowadays “language as such is hardly ever used as an argument in
269
favour of a distinct identity.” (Hooghe:158).1 Present-day claims for cultural identity
altogether avoid the romantic nationalist tradition that assumed that culture (literature,
music) could express a national essence, not only because such ideas are perceived as
outdated but also because a significant part of Flanders’ cultural establishment is very
critical towards Flemish identity affirmations. The lack of sympathy for Flemish
nationalism in the Netherlands and the difficulty to include Brussels in an exclusively
language-based vision also explain for Hooghe the surprisingly limited attention played
to language in contemporary constructions of Flemish identity (although language issues
do play an important role both in politics and in the perceptions communities have of
each other).
Language does create a crucial difference between the two cases. Italy constitutes
by all means a unified communicative space with one language and a predominantly
unitary media system and public sphere. In Belgium, on the contrary, the public sphere is
separated according to language communities. As Patrick Stouthuysen and Theo Jans
outline, separated public spheres (and the absence or weakness of a common one) play a
central role in reinforcing the centrifugal dynamics of the Belgian political system. For
them, Belgium confirms John Stuart Mill’s prediction that democracy would only survive
in the long run when people speak the same language and by this means are able to form
a united public opinion. As a consequence of this separation, Belgium is certainly rife
with mutual misunderstanding and reciprocal lack of information, and a common public
sphere where both communities dialogue remains indeed very weak - although recent
years did witness increasing efforts to (re-)establish such a common sphere. This context
certainly explains why even defenders of Belgian unity tend to consider Belgian identity
as problematic. In fact, reflections on this issue (e.g. Buelens et al., 2007) intend to reinvent such an identity understood as a vision on the country’s future.
The language issue definitely contrasts the two cases studied here, and it is of
course revealing that the Lega attempted but utterly failed to bring into existence a
“Padanian” language. Public discourse in Italy has for sure never really questioned
national identity, and the emergence of the Lega has in fact been parallelled by a revival
of interest in Italian national identity, as the contribution of Nevola highlights. He
contextualizes this interest within a long-standing national tradition of reflection on the
meaning of “nation”, a tradition much weaker in Belgium. The political crises the country
has undergone have been parallelled with the articulation of new modes of interpretations
of this identity. To the post-war restoration of democracy corresponded a redefinition of
the nation as a civic entity, intimately bound with a democratic polity. Nevola observes
that the emergence of the Lega Nord and the parallel crisis of the Italian party system
have in fact revived public interest in the linkages between national identity and
democracy. The rise of the Lega nevertheless also drew renewed attention to regional
diversity within Italy, a regularly returning issue on the Italian political and intellectual
agenda. The post-war democratic political system has in fact acknowledged this diversity,
in a first stage by the creation of five special-statute regions, in a second stage by that of
the “ordinary” regions.
Giuseppe Gangemi’s contribution links Italian regional diversity to present and
past debates on the institutional set-up of Italy. He focuses on the meaning of the term
1
Quotations to contributions to this volume will only refer to the author and the page
number. Nor are they included in the bibliography at the end of the conclusion.
270
“federalism”, relatively unproblematic in the Belgian context, much more complex and
controversial in the Italian one. He contextualizes the often instrumental use of federalism
in Italy within the context of its original emergence and use in political theory, as a
concept that discusses and intends to define the fundamentals of political systems. He
reminds us that the “term federalism derives from the Latin word “foedus” [which may
be] interpreted as a synonym of three different words: 1) covenant; 2) compact; 3)
contract” (Gangemi:64), implying three different versions of political obligation. He
outlines that the crucial issue is whether “foedus” is regarded as “a political pact
regarding the system (the political or institutional system) or a polity (a politically
organized social body).” (ibid). The contested and instrumentalized use of the concept in
the present Italian debate is rarely related to such theoretical debates, and this absence of
theoretical background corresponds with the lack of a coherent and reflexive project of
institutional reforms. Gangemi draws attention to a minoritarian but long-standing
intellectual and political tradition in Italy that did reflect on this issue. His text hence
proposes a rediscovery of a school of thought concerned with matching the unification of
Italy with the preservation and extension of local autonomy, against the centralism that
characterized the Unification from above imposed by the Savoy dynasty.
The territorialization of identity also differentiates the two cases. In Belgium, the
political mobilization of the Flemish community has territorialized ethnic identity
through the establishment of a language border (1962-1963) and the cycle of institutional
reforms that led to the present federal system. In Italy, there is a contrast between the
embeddedness of discourses affirming the North-South opposition and the imprecise
territorial delimitation of these entities. The Lega’s inability (or unwillingness) to propose
fixed borders for northern Italy reflects the problematic nature of regional borders, and
more in general the multiplicity of possible divisions of the Italian territory. Gangemi’s
contribution draws attention to this multiplicity, and highlights how the “Padanian”
nation proposed by the Lega is in fact a novelty that does not correspond with historical
attempts to unify territories in northern Italy (the duchy of Milan, the Venetian Republic).
He also points out how “Padania” with its explicit reference to the Po river equally does
not correspond with its hydrographic definition (the basin of the Po river).
It is tempting to explain the present strength of centrifugal tendencies in Belgium
and their weakness in Italy by means of the well-embedded presence of regional identities
in the former case and their weakness in the latter. In Flanders, Flemish identity without
doubt has become hegemonic and institutionalized while, as Beyen outlines, in recent
years historians have also re-evaluated its importance in earlier periods, particularly
before the rise of militant Flemish nationalism. In northern Italy, the identity the Lega
proposes undoubtedly remains a minority option and is only strongly embedded in those
territories in northern Italy where the Christian Democrat subculture was previously
predominant (without reaching the Christian Democrat level of dominance). Other
political actors (but also the Catholic Church, trade unions, and civil society
organizations in general) unanimously reject the Lega’s secessionist claim, and the
majority of the northern Italian population still displays its attachment to Italy. Some
elements, however, clearly problematize this explanation. Prejudices in northern Italy
against the South and its conceptualization as poor and backwards have in fact a stronger
and historically more rooted tradition than in Belgium. The Lega hence only activated
already existent ideas in a context of a political crisis. The specific location of southern
Italy, at the geographical border of Europe, has facilitated the display of “Orientalist”
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stereotypes against the region’s inhabitants that rhetorically exclude them from Europe,
an option altogether unavailable in Belgium. Although the issue has played only an
intermittent role in the public debate, throughout the history of Italy northern modernity
and southern backwardness have indeed frequently been juxtaposed, corresponding with
more widely shared northern prejudices against southern Italians sometimes accompanied
by paternalist attitudes towards the South.
The continuity of regional stereotyping in Italy contrasts with the important shift
it has undergone in Belgium. Historically, the cultural and particularly the language
paternalism of the Francophones (based on the alleged cultural superiority of the French
language) has been an important trigger-off of Flemish mobilizations, and reminiscences
of this paternalism explain why the use of language does remain such a sensitive issue in
Belgium. However, the strength of the Flemish economy has resulted in the articulation
of a new Flemish paternalism that relates the region’s economic success to Flemish
culture and good governance and Wallonia’s economic problems to cultural deficiencies.
Taking into account that forms of cultural paternalism can easily trigger of
political conflicts even in cases where ethnic antagonism is very moderate (a good
example are Slovak reactions against Czech cultural paternalism, see Ruzicka and
Stullerova, 2008), and that it indeed played this role in Flanders, it is interesting to notice
how weak secessionist tendencies are in Wallonia (and southern Italy). Fear of the
negative economic consequences of secession undoubtedly provides an adequate
explanation for this weakness. For southern Italy, the anthropologist Dorothy Zinn
proposes another interpretation. She highlights how southern Italians frequently interpret
their own society in the stereotyped negative terms of privileged outsiders, a process she
defines as “ethno-orientalism” (Zinn, 2001:167-187). This interpretation is definitely also
relevant for Wallonia. In both cases, a negative or problematic self-image indeed appears
as an additional impediment of the emergence of secessionist tendencies. In both regions,
however, counter-discourses questioning the values of the stronger community are also
articulated. In Wallonia, such discourses develop a regional image of an open, democratic
society characterized by social solidarity, in contrast with Flanders, represented as selfinterested, with strong xenophobic and anti-democratic tendencies (the latter element
refers to the electoral strength of Vlaams Belang). In southern Italy, a small group of
intellectuals (discussed in the contribution of Huysseune) proposes a more principled
critique of the dogmatic modernism of dominant discourses, and proposes a rediscovery
of (not exclusively southern) anti-utilitarian values to deconstruct these discourses.
We can certainly not reduce stereotyped images of regions and prejudices to
expressions of popular culture, since these images are embedded in elite and academic
public discourse especially in the more successful regions. Both in Belgium and in Italy,
interpreting and understanding differences between regions are problematic issues, as the
contribution of Michel Huysseune highlights. Interpretative problems are certainly not the
consequence of a lack of expertise which is in both cases amply present – interpretations
of southern Italy dispose in fact of a particularly rich and intellectual sophisticated
tradition but this tradition itself is sometimes instrumentalized to confirm existent
prejudices. This process is enhanced by the fact that social science research often reflects
the socially predominant criteria to judge societies. In the present context territories are
classified according to their economic success, but this success is read as expressing a
normative hierarchy of territories according to their cultural capacities, since these
capacities are considered the primordial reason for their success. This ideological context
272
that dismisses or ignores arguments on the structural constraints of economic growth
undoubtedly facilitates a “regionalization of reason” (Cassano, 2009:22) and legitimizes
the identity affirmation and centrifugal claims of richer regions.
The case of Italy reveals best the ambivalence of identities, since northern
prejudices against southerners co-exist schizophrenically but peacefully with affirmations
of Italian identity. The dynamics of political and cultural life in Belgium enhance the
affirmation of regional rather than national identity, but as a consequence the importance
of the attachment to Belgium is easily underestimated. In both countries, empirical
research moreover clearly problematizes discourses essentializing regional differences.
On the basis of the data of the 2006 European Social Survey, Hooghe’s contribution
argues that in the values they profess Walloons and Flemish resemble each other
strongly. In their value patterns the Flemish lean somewhat more to the Dutch, and the
Francophones to the French, but interregional differences are very small. The similarities
are also striking concerning those values that play an important element in the
construction of Flemish or Walloon identity. In their location on a left-right scale, in their
attitudes towards religion and in their level of ethnocentrism, Flemings and Walloons are
rather similar. The same is also the case concerning their level of trust, a good variable to
understand economic success. Overall, Hooghe argues, subnationalist claims for essential
cultural differences between Flanders and Wallonia, or between Flemings and
Francophones, find little empirical support.
Roberto Biorcio and Tommaso Vitale do observe some cultural differences
between northern and southern Italians. They highlight, however, that these differences
are essentially related to different levels of educational attainment and point out the
curious paradox that the very electorate of the Lega Nord mobilized against the South at
the same time deviates in its value patterns from the northern population and rather
resembles the southern one (with which it shares a lower level of educational attainment)
in its low level of interpersonal trust, its less liberal attitude towards civil rights and its
desire for authority (even stronger in the Lega electorate than in the South). Lega voters
distinguish themselves both from the northern and southern population by their support
for entrepreneurial freedom, and their opposition to trade unions and redistributive
policies. These observations draw attention to a dimension well-acknowledged by social
scientists but often neglected in public discourse, that public opinion in these regions is
divided and that a regionalist discourse, even when hegemonic, also encounters
opposition within these territories.
Interestingly enough, both contributions highlight that in neither cases (Flanders
and northern Italy) the population has a primary identification with the regional level. In
Belgium but not in Italy, however, we may nevertheless observe that the population in
Flanders is more attached to the region than that of other regions2 – in Italy the
population of the North interestingly enough identifies itself more with the nation, that of
the South identifies itself rather locally (within northern Italy, however, identification
with the North, albeit still a minority option, has gradually increased during the last
twenty years). In contrast with the rest of the northern population, however, the electorate
2
Research on the 2009 regional elections in Belgium essentially confirms these
identification patterns (Deschouwer and Sinardet, 2010). The authors moreover highlight
that comparisons with previous data do not show any consistent trend towards a further
regionalization of identity.
273
of the Lega Nord opposes local to national identity. The Lega Nord nevertheless has also
exercised a broader impact in northern Italy beyond its own electoral constituency, as is
revealed by the increased support for autonomy and fiscal federalism in northern Italy.
The limits of this impact was, however, revealed in the 2006 referendum on a “federal”
constitutional reform introduced by the centre-right and supported by the Lega: even in
the North this reform which included increasing competencies for regions was rejected by
a majority of the population.
The existence and articulation of regional identities thus does not automatically
promote centrifugal regionalism. However, while sceptical about the possible centrifugal
dynamics of regionalism in the present Italian context, Nevola nevertheless concedes that
the existence of a Padanian identity introduces an element of uncertainty in Italian
politics. He highlights that in Italy, local and territorial identities are often constructed
against the central state, but that this opposition is not translated in a secessionist stance.
What regions in Italy miss is, according to him, not so much a cultural identity or a
common political culture (both frequently present), but a “political identity, the
translation of the collective identity into binding loyalty (‘political obligation’)”
(Nevola:45). The weakness of such regional loyalty and a fortiori of political loyalty
towards a hypothetical Padanian entity certainly problematize at this stage any
secessionist project.
Beyen’s contribution offers interesting elements for a re-interpretation of
identities, that neither takes them for granted according to the essentialist creed but also
does not want to reduce them to constructions produced by an elite of political and
cultural entrepreneurs. The debate on the processes that promoted the dissemination of
Flemish identity is relatively recent and certainly not yet concluded. An interesting
element he highlights is how the Catholic Party’s electoral success in Flanders in the late
19th and early 20th century was related to its capacity to represent “an emergent Flemish
self-image, built upon traditional and rural values” (Beyen:19). This historical excursion
reveals the importance of linkages of identities and ideologies, an important but
frequently neglected dimension of contemporary regionalist mobilizations.
For the purpose of our comparison, it is particularly interesting to notice that the
Lega itself cultivates a similar traditional rural image of northern Italy (Cento Bull,
2003:45-46).3 As Nevola reminds us, the emergence of the Lega itself resulted from a
crisis of the Christian Democrat party and its political subculture in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. The Lega displayed its ability to capture and transform the Catholic political
subculture predominant in many parts of northern Italy. This transformation of previously
existent political subcultures and their ideologies is less prominent in Flanders. The
increasing importance of affirmations of regional rather than national identity reflects in
the first place the regionalization of the party system and the increasing role of regional
authorities. This process has been parallelled by the increasing tendency at least since the
1960s to read political cleavages (including the ones that previously also dominated
Belgian history: clerical/anticlerical and capital/labour) in “ethnic” terms (cf. Huyse,
3
This parallel certainly deserves further comparative analysis. Ruralism and tradition
certainly would have a different meaning in the late 19th century and now, and the
relation between the Lega and Catholicism has, notwithstanding its present ultra-Catholic
stance, frequently been problematic (leading the party even to cultivate for several years
an allegedly Padanian “Celtic” pagan religiosity).
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1981). The ideological components of this transformation of interpretative frameworks
and more in general of contemporary Flemish (and Francophone) affirmations of identity
certainly deserve more research. It is nevertheless clear that the (partial) transformation of
socio-political into ethnic identities is characteristic for both cases. While these processes
exemplify the constructed nature of ethnic identities, this identity transformation is
nevertheless a source of political problems, since ethnic identities tend to be much more
intractable than ideological ones (Cento Bull, 2003:52). In Italy, the linkage of this
identity with one particular political party probably limits at the same time its appeal,
while in Flanders this identity has apparently succeeded in transcending its original
political and cultural linkages.
Identities by themselves are certainly not a sufficient explanation of centrifugal
regionalism, since in both cases they clearly are shifting and sometimes ambivalent, if not
schizophrenic. Hooghe therefore emphasizes that “the role of political entrepreneurs, and
the availability of a conducive political opportunity structure are much more important in
this regard” (Hooghe:169), and Biorcio and Vitale likewise point out to the role of
“pertinent actors … structured by cultural and value constraints, by institutions and their
respective prescriptive and operational instruments, by environments made up of
opportunities and economic interests” (Biorcio and Vitale:172). Several contributors
remind us that in Italy the emergence of the Lega Nord is related to the crisis of the
Italian party system in the early 1990s. In Belgium, the institutional set-ups definitely
appear as a crucial element of the political opportunity structure that explains the strength
of centrifugal regionalism. Stouthuysen and Jans outline how the Belgian federal system
and the successive reforms of this system generate centrifugal dynamics (almost) entirely
absent in Italy. In Belgium, the centrifugal dynamics appear to be an inherent feature of
the process of institutional reforms (starting from the late 1970s) that has transformed the
unitary Belgian state into a federal state (cf. Swenden et al., 2006). Each new reform has
weakened the federal government and reinforced the regional and community authorities.
The complex overlap of competencies of the Belgian federal system induces renewed
pressure for institutional reforms that would make the system more efficient. Demands
for reform almost automatically take the shape of transfers of new competencies to the
regional and community level. This process finds its parallel in the dynamics of the
Belgian party system, where all parties have been divided along community lines since
the 1970s and presently primarily identify with these communities rather than with the
nation-state, resulting in the reinforcement of articulations of difference. The gradual
weakening of the federal level and the difficulty of federal governance with its complex
compromises between communities both make it look more rational to reinforce the
regional and community level.
Notwithstanding the strength of this centrifugal logic of institutional reforms,
Stouthuysen and Jans nevertheless do not necessarily believe that this process will lead to
the dissolution of Belgium. Not only does the conundrum of the Brussels region
problematize any separation, the three regions in Belgium are condemned to cooperate
because they are so inextricably interwoven. The dissolution of Belgium therefore cannot
really solve the problems encountered in establishing such cooperation. The problem
may, as Karmis and Gagnon (2001:161) suggest, indeed be the lack of a long-term shared
vision or real political project on the institutional future of a Belgian state (beyond the
separatist or confederal vision in Flanders and the Francophone desire for status quo).
They argue that the Belgian political system renders the elaboration and execution of
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such a long-term vision difficult: because of its electoral system of proportional
representation and its procedures of constitutional change, reform are difficult to realize
and they hence result from ad hoc compromises rather than from the reflective
articulation of a political project.
Compared to Belgium, the Italian regional system, installed partly after the
Second World War (the Special Statute Regions), partly in 1970 (the other regions), has
never displayed the centrifugal tendencies of the Belgian system, as both Nevola and
Gangemi highlight. The competencies the regions did acquire have never seriously
threatened the centrality of the national government. The party system remains (with the
exception of the Lega itself and some other small regionalist parties) without doubt
national, with only limited space for articulations of regional specificity. The institutional
set-up also plays a role concerning the economic policies of regions, since the Belgian
regions have many more competencies than the Italian ones. The division of northern
Italy in several regions (sometimes with more extended competencies, as is the case with
Trentino, Friuli, Venezia-Giulia and Valle d’Aosta) certainly renders more difficult any
elaboration of a collective northern political strategy or economic policy. The
institutional set-up in Belgium, whereby regions overlap with ethnic communities and
also have broad competences in the cultural field moreover strongly enhances their role
as promoters of cultural identity, a role the various subnational authorities in Belgium
have not hesitated to play. The more limited competencies of Italian regions certainly put
restrictions on interventions in this field, and they moreover promote only their particular
regional identity rather than a northern one, and hence the political impact of such
policies is of necessity more circumscribed. In addition, national institutions in Italy still
can play an important role in promoting Italian identity, and the Italian media and many
representatives of the country’s intellectual and cultural establishment actively support
this process. The Belgian federal government is unable or unwilling to play a similar role,
media are community-bound, and promotions of Belgian identity hence in general rely on
mainly private initiatives (with a relatively limited impact). Nevola nevertheless points
out that the crisis of the party system in the early 1990s potentially also was a crisis of the
nation, since the major parties played a crucial role in integrating citizens into the
political system and also into the nation. The increased attention to national identity in the
Italian public debate, besides being a response to the Lega’s alternative nation-claim, may
hence be related to the need to stabilize and increase the legitimacy of its political system.
The contribution of Beyen also draws attention to the role institutions played in
the past. Beyen relates the formation of regional political identities to the institutional
dynamics of the newly independent Belgian state. He argues that the emergence of the
Flemish movement (and later of the anti-Flemish Walloon movement) resulted from the
resentment against the centralizing tendencies of the Belgian state in a political and
cultural context where such centralism had little legitimacy and moreover was too weak
to impose itself on society. His reading of Belgian history hence does attribute an
important role to regional identities, but against essentialist readings of these identities he
equally points out that the very institutional set-up of the new Belgian state played a
crucial role in shaping and politicizing these identities. The importance of history and
hence of a longue durée perspective is also relevant for the Italian case: critiques of the
centralism of the Italian state are an essential feature of the Lega Nord’s political
discourse but these critiques follow (albeit reinterpreting and modifying it) themselves a
long-standing tradition. The new Italian state was organised following a highly centralist
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model. This model lacked the strong liberal input characteristic of the Belgian state and
rather copied (albeit with important differences) the French Jacobin-imperial state model
(cf. Tarrow, 1977).4 The need to unify the country and to “make Italians” (as emphasized
by the prominent politician Massimo D’Azeglio), combined with the serious problems
the state encountered to establish its authority in the South, gave at least at the level of
political elites legitimacy to this strongly centralized state structure (and in the long run
the state institutions indeed were able to “make Italians”). For a variety of reasons,
however, the Italian state has in many ways been a problematic institution, and historians
of the Italian state and students of its present political system have related its
dysfunctional features to its inefficient centralism. Gangemi points out that the Savoy
dynasty governed Italy as a militarily conquered territory and polemically argues that this
choice reflected their inability to take into consideration alternative modes of governance.
Gangemi’s contribution highlights in fact how the Italian history is also one of missed
opportunities for a more appropriate institutional and territorial organization of the
country. Both in Belgium and in Italy regionalism is therefore related to the institutional
set-up of the country, a reaction to a centralism that could be perceived as problematic or
even illegitimate. Since secessionism is only one possible answer to this challenge
(institutional reforms of revolutions being possible alternatives, and the former has been
practiced both in Belgium and Italy), the reason why it has become a plausible one still
needs additional explanation.
There is no doubt that both in northern Italy and in Flanders economic arguments
provide an important component that explains the success of visions questioning the
central state. The ideological climate and the hegemonic position of a neoliberal vision
focused on individual responsibility and suspicious of social solidarity undoubtedly
provides in both cases legitimacy to the questioning of interregional economic solidarity.
However, in both cases articulations of centrifugal regionalism also outline an image of a
community within which solidarity may be preserved. In both cases, discourses link the
economic success of the region to its cultural identity. As Hooghe points out, “[c] laiming
that a different cultural identity is responsible for the observed difference in economic
outcomes, strategically is a very clever move.” (Hooghe:160). It allows putting the blame
on the economically less successful population (Wallonians), and hence justifies by
means of rhetoric of responsibilization abandoning or at the very least diminishing
interregional solidarity, and a similar logic equally plays an important role in Italy (see
Huysseune 2006; 2008). It is therefore important to understand the logic and the history
of (re)articulations of regional economic identities. In contrast with ethnic identities,
regional economic identities in Italy (particularly in the form of the North-South
juxtaposition) are more consolidated and have stronger historical roots (predating the
country’s unification) than in Belgium. The opposition between the modern North and an
4
It should be pointed out that the different institutional set-ups in Belgium and Italy
reflected their different political culture. In Belgium, the strongly embedded tradition of
self-government and the weakness of an autochthonous absolutist tradition created an
ideal environment for a liberal monarchy (supported in its essentials by both liberal and
Catholic politicians). Italy’s political culture of the period of Unification (itself a
reflection of Piedmont’s pre-unification political culture) was a mixture of absolutism
tempered by liberal constitutionalism (a context more favourable to authoritarian and
centralist tendencies).
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allegedly backward and economically underdeveloped South is an essential trope of
northern Italian self-identity, while the similar juxtaposition of a rich Flanders and an
economically lagging Wallonia is much more recent and dates in fact from the post-War
period (while before the opposite vision of a “backward” Flanders, sometimes related to
its alleged cultural inferiority, was prevalent). More recently, much of northern Italy has
been identified with the economic model of endogenous development based on industrial
districts. This model originated in the social sciences, before the emergence of the Lega
and hence without any ethnoregionalist connotation. Its emphasis on local social and
cultural resources has nevertheless undoubtedly been congenial to the ethnoregionalism
of the Lega. Presentations of industrial districts as grass-roots propelled models of
development without state support (but also based on community identity and
substantially egalitarian) also facilitate the party’s articulation of the juxtaposition of
northern grassroots economic dynamism against a state represented as bureaucratic,
inefficient and corrupt.
Much of the success of the Lega is in particular based on its capacity to politicize
the local socio-economic identities within industrial districts: the party offers in fact a
political narrative that is perfectly compatible with the local identities characteristic of
these districts. As much literature on the Lega points out, such convergence between local
identities and the northern narrative of the Lega is a necessary (albeit not sufficient)
condition to explain the party’s successes. The party is, however, also under pressure of
evolutions within this constituency, and this dimension is highlighted in the contribution
of Anna Cento Bull. She focuses on recent evolutions of industrial districts in the regions
that are the historical heartland of the party: the Veneto and Lombardy, and the impact of
these evolutions on social identities. These districts have undergone two processes: they
developed a hierarchic configuration and they internationalized. Delocalization of
production for sure offered important benefits for entrepreneurs, in the first place of
leading firms but also for smaller entrepreneurs, but at the same time produced growing
tensions and stress at home. These tensions express themselves in opposition to foreign
competition deemed unfair, and against immigrants who have become an embedded
presence in these districts. The immediate outcome of these developments seems to be a
reinforcement of the Lega, who gives political expressions to these tensions.
The elaboration of an economic identity of Flanders follows an altogether
different track than in northern Italy. Although the Flemish movement has a long history
of mobilization on behalf of the economic development of the region, the present
articulation of this regional economic identity is a recent affair. The contribution of Stijn
Oosterlynck focuses precisely on this process, and highlights the conscious intervention
of the recently established Flemish regional government in the early 1980s. It is clearly
the creation of this institution and its ability to propose and concretize an economic
model that sustains the present Flemish identity that proposes the region both as an
economical success model and as an example of good governance. Oosterlynck, however,
points out that the outcome of this process itself resulted from a number of factors: the
structure of the Flemish economy enabled more possibilities for reconversion than that of
the other regions, the federal authorities did not have the political leeway to focus on
presenting new economic models, and Flanders disposed of an economic elite able and
willing to invest in the elaboration of this new economic model. The outcome is an
entrepreneurial model of development that also shifted, as Oosterlynck states “the
imagination of the role of the state in the economy” (Oosterlynck:91), since it intended to
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limit the Keynes-inspired state intervention and conceptualized the role of the state to
supply-side policies. In both regions, the hegemonic economic model hence limits the
role of institutions, but the Flemish regional economic identity is nevertheless much more
related to these institutions that function as its flagship.
The different economic models do have important consequences on the perception
of social and political identities. The intimate relation between economic and social
models in the northern Italian industrial districts seems to have as a consequence that
economic changes have quite direct and compelling social consequences and, since the
Lega has indeed always displayed a strong sensitivity to the social processes within these
districts, these consequences also find political expression. However, these districts are
experiencing an increasing divorce between their cultural, social and political values and
the demands raised by economic globalization. Cento Bull quotes a report of the
Fondazione Nord Est that highlights how these social and cultural values “nowadays
show some perverse effects which do not go well with the actions necessary […] to face
the challenges of internationalization of the markets, globalization, integration of
migrants, social cohesion etc. Even more importantly, in some cases these values risk
slowing down the new phase of transformation or prevent new opportunities from being
identified” (Cento Bull:103). She points out that anxiety and stress within these districts
engenders a defensive ethnocentrism that produces “what has been defined as the
‘politics of simulation’, with reference to a politics which practices ‘societal selfdeception’ in order to address people’s growing insecurities.” (idem:105).
Such immediate relation between economic changes and social identities seems
much weaker in Flanders, because of the more institutional and less socially embedded
economic identity of the region. The present economic crisis has not yet engendered an
important rethinking of the Flemish economic model, and certainly nationalist rhetoric
claiming that the Flemish region, not burdened by the Belgian state or transfers to
Wallonia, would better be able to tackle the challenges of economic globalization,
dominated the 2009 (regional) and 2010 (federal) electoral campaigns. Recent statements
of important Flemish politicians on the need for a federalism of solidarity nevertheless
could be interpreted as a (at this moment timid) shift of paradigm towards a vision more
sensitive to the possible risks of an excessively self-centred vision of Flanders. In Italy,
recent literature on its economy and industrial districts does provide a more critical and
less idealizing vision on them, as is amply documented in the contribution of Cento Bull
(see also Berta, 2008; Perulli and Pichierri, 2010). At the political level, however, the
consequence of the present economic crisis, rather than a questioning of the economic
model seems to be a demand for more protection of this model. This demand is politically
expressed by the Lega’s anti-globalization policies, its defense of protectionist measures
against foreign imports (particularly from China), but even more against immigration.
The issue of immigration (and reactions against it, in particular expressions of
xenophobia) has played an important role in both cases. In Flanders the considerable
electoral successes of the extreme right Vlaams Belang party (only recently in decline
after a period of constant growth since the late 1980s) suggests linkages between
centrifugal regionalism and xenophobia, since this party also sponsors Flemish
independence. The Lega Nord’s programme equally includes an anti-immigrant
dimension that since the late 1990s has taken more and more a central position in the
party’s propaganda. Once again, the xenophobia of the Lega may be related to social
relations within industrial districts. Literature on these districts and on the early successes
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of the Lega (e.g. Cento Bull, 1996) already pointed out how support for the Lega was
related to mechanisms of solidarity based on the juxtaposition of locals and outsiders
(with the use of dialect as a cultural discriminant). This culture was clearly particular
congenial to the Lega’s political message that juxtaposes the virtues of the northern
population to the vices of the Italian state and associated the state with the present of
immigrants (including those from southern Italy). The contributions of Devi Sacchetto
and Anna Cento Bull both point out how many of these districts have increasingly
become reliant on immigrant labour. As a rule, this reliance is combined with a rather
strict segregation within the labour market that relegates immigrants to the least
rewarding unskilled positions, often in a context of extremely exploitative labour
conditions. This social and hierarchical differentiation does not easily create solidarity
between native and immigrant workers: the latter are accepted as a necessary labour force
but their social presence is unwanted, especially in smaller communities. At the local
level Lega majors in particular have frequently taken measures meant to discriminate
immigrants and exclude them from public sociability. The strongly ethnocentric stance of
the Lega and the public visibility of its discriminatory policies are, however, not
necessarily representative of northern society as a whole: as Biorcio and Vitale point out,
hostility towards outsiders and immigrants is in fact stronger in southern than in northern
Italy (with the exception of the strongly ethnocentric electorate of the Lega).
Both Sacchetto and Cento Bull link attitudes and social practices in these
industrial districts to the immigration policies of local and national authorities. Policies
towards immigrants have become increasingly punitive and the Bossi-Fini law of 2002
has made obtaining residence permits conditional on the exercise of a regular job, putting
immigrants under pressure to accept any such job regardless of conditions. As Sacchetto
points out, the crucial dimension to understand contemporary practices of discrimination
regards the transformation of the labour market that has coincided with the emergence of
the industrial districts, and in particular the weakening of collective bargaining and the
informalization of labour relations. The segmentation of the labour market in these
districts puts immigrants at the lowest scale of the labour hierarchy and provides for their
subordinate integration. The preferential treatment of locals also finds its expression in
social life, where immigrants are frequently confronted with discriminatory practices, for
example concerning the access to housing. However much discrimination follows grassroots processes whereby local networks of social solidarity tend to exclude and
discriminate immigrants, Sacchetto also highlights the involvement of Italian media and
policy makers (in the first place from the Lega, but also from other parties, including
from the centre-left) in this process. These actors have been actively involved in
presenting immigrants as a security problem, and have hence contributed to a public
discourse in which stereotypes against immigrants abound and discriminatory policies
towards them become legitimate. Sacchetto argues that “racist and xenophobic campaigns
promoted by politically-controlled institutions and adopted by local politicians, are
central to control migrant workers and to deprive them of voice.” (Sacchetto:141). For
Sacchetto, these campaigns and discriminatory practices themselves are embedded in a
more long-term (not exclusively Italian) history of racial ideology and discrimination, but
they may also express (as is frequently the case for the Lega) a more general intolerance
towards any form of social deviance and non-conformity. He nevertheless points out that
counter-practices and visions of solidarity with immigrants are equally present in Italy,
albeit in a minoritarian position with insufficient public visibility.
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Policies towards immigrants are undoubtedly different in Belgium, starting from
its liberal legislation on naturalization. While some Flemish parties share with Vlaams
Belang its antagonism towards the Belgian state, Flemish mainstream parties have
systematically refused to cooperate with this party because of its xenophobia and its more
or less overt neo-Nazi sympathies, and they equally have expressed their hostility towards
racism. Xenophobia is certainly present in Flanders (albeit not stronger that in Wallonia),
and all research confirms that the electoral successes of Vlaams Belang are related to its
anti-immigrant programme. The impact of the successes of this party on Flemish politics
is, however, far from straightforward, as the contribution of Patrick Loobuyck and Dirk
Jacobs highlights. Presumably because of the pressure of Vlaams Belang, Flemish parties
are admittedly tougher than Francophone ones on the issues of asylum and regularization
of illegal immigrants. The policies of the Flemish government towards immigrants in the
region follow, however, a more complex logic, and the contrast with the French
community is particularly interesting. The latter follows, rather in line with the French
tradition, an assimilationist policy towards immigrants. Flemish policies, on the contrary,
include a strong multicultural component, based on the recognition of ethno-cultural
groups, their language and culture.
As Loobuyck and Jacobs highlight, the Flemish policy frame clearly incorporates
the experience of the Flemish history of cultural emancipation, and hence assumes that
the preservation of other cultures is equally valid, hence giving legitimacy to
multiculturalism. They point out that Flemish nationalism has, besides its radical right
expressions, a strong democratic component that accepts and fosters liberal-democratic
values, including multiculturalism. However, the Flemish policy frame also includes an
assimilationist component. Because of the crucial place of the language component in the
history of the Flemish movement, ensuring that immigrants speak Dutch has always been
an important policy concern, but recently Flemish policies pay more importance to
“citizenization”. The recent imposition of compulsory citizenization courses for
immigrants and asylum seekers is based on the assumption that they can only become
Flemish citizen if they are able to speak Dutch and “agree with the ‘Flemish’ values of
pluralism, democracy, the rule of law, freedom, equality, solidarity, respect and
citizenship” (Loobuyck and Jacobs:135). Recent policies definitely include a stronger
assimilationist component – also expressed in the recent ban on headscarves in Flemish
official schools – but at the same time preserve many elements of the previous
multiculturalist policies. In general, even when the cultural identity of minorities is
deemed important, Flemish policies certainly give precedence to Flemish culture, hence
promoting inegalitarian multiculturalism. The case of Flanders nevertheless
problematizes any automatic linkage between centrifugal regionalism and xenophobic
tendencies. It is, however, unclear whether the Flemish policy framework is more
successful than the Francophone one of assimilation, since in both communities the
situation of allochtones in terms of social equality (education, employment) leaves much
to be desired.
On the social and cultural dynamics that enable the emergence of xenophobic
policies, the contributions of Lien Warmenbol and Martina Avanza shed light from a
different perspective. They both analyze the meso-level, Warmenbol different
neighbourhoods in Antwerp (the most important electoral stronghold of the Vlaams
Belang), Avanza the community of “Padanist” activists of the Lega. In both cases, the
success of these parties is clearly related to the decline of the mass party model and hence
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their weakening territorial presence. Warmenbol relates the electoral results of Vlaams
Belang in districts to political participation and the links between parties and the local
population. She emphasizes in particular a supply side explanation, the presence of the
Vlaams Belang party in neighbourhoods where traditional parties have increasingly
become invisible (especially in local contexts with a tradition of clientelism and
patronage). Vlaams Belang hence channels new mobilizations, essentially around local
issues, although some of them (e.g. around mosques) clearly are also related to the
ideological agenda of the party. The party’s success in capturing local consensus is
inversely proportional to the presence of other parties: where these remain locally active
consensus for the Vlaams Belang diminishes, sometimes drastically. Although the
presence and grass-roots activity of political parties certainly is not the only explanation
of political success (Vlaams Belang obtained important results even in contexts where it
is hardly present), her contribution certainly demonstrates the limits of interpretations that
understand voters in modern democracies as rational individuals making choices on the
basis of personal interests and outside any social context.
Many commentators in Italy have equally pointed out how the emergence of the
Lega parallels the disappearance of traditional mass parties, in the first place the Christian
democrats. The regions where the Lega is most strongly embedded and where its activists
are most present are also those where other parties, in particular those of the left, have
traditionally been weaker and now are all but invisible. The contribution of Martina
Avanza on Lega Nord activists and in particular on the group of militants devoted to the
Padanian nation-building project, however, also offers other interesting insights. It
highlights the well-embedded grass-roots presence of the party in many northern
communities, but also the limits of the party’s reach. Its capacity to generate political
militancy is not matched in the social field: the party’s attempts to create unions or
organizations representing specific interest groups have in general been unsuccessful. It
also shows that the tension within the Lega between its nation-building rhetoric and its
participation in the institutions of the Italian government is parallelled by a separation
between militants involved in the institutions and those engaged in the Padanian nationbuilding project (the so-called “Padanists”). The latter constitute in fact a community of
activists often critical of the party’s politics (in particular its alliance with Berlusconi).
Avanza’s contribution shows how this community devotes itself to a long-term project of
nation-building (a project in which the xenophobic compönent is very strong). They are
involved in the “Padanian” institutions the party has set up to simulate an independent
state (e.g. the Padanian parliament) and participate to the celebrations of Padanian
nationhood. In their day-to-day activities, they intend to promote Padanian identity
through a variety of sectorial organizations. Avanza highlights how this world of
Padanists, in promoting an identity purported to represent the whole of northern Italy in
practice is strongly self-referential. Although the Padanist community is not a sect whose
members cut off ties with their social environment, its activists clearly concentrate their
engagement within this community at the detriment of non-partisan forms of participation
in local community life. This Padanian community allows its members important
possibilities of self-realization and sometimes also of social promotion (albeit strictly
within the context of the party itself). The relative isolation and self-referentiality of
Padanian activists nevertheless appear as symbolic of the marginality of the Padanian
nation-building project, notwithstanding the party’s electoral successes.
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Warmenbol and Avanza certainly reveal the social embeddedness of the activists
of Vlaams Belang and the Lega Nord but also that the party’s successes are contingent,
partly dependent on the limited presence of other parties. The Vlaams Belang constructs
its grass-roots presence essentially through local issues, which are not necessarily
strongly ideological but do include problems related to the presence of immigrants. The
Lega activists certainly propose a right-wing vision of society in which hostility towards
immigrants plays an important role. While in both cases, antipolitical attitudes and
xenophobic attitudes are undoubtedly present and characterize these parties’
constituency, the measure in which the social embeddedness of these parties also reflects
a broader adherence to their secessionist project is less straightforward. Warmenbol’s
contribution suggests that the issue is not of primary importance for the Vlaams Belang
constituency. Avanza suggests that the nation-building dimension of the Lega Nord
indeed finds militant support, but remains an essentially internal project with a limited
impact on society at large (and in fact separates these activists from society at large but
even from the more institutional party activities).
The limits of the impact of these parties raise the question of the possible impact
of alternative projects, and of political mobilizations that counter the vision of these
parties (and in a broader context, the agenda of centrifugal regionalism). The
contributions of Jeroen Van Laer and Gianni Piazza focus on such mobilizations, but
each from a different perspective. Van Laer’s contribution centres upon the analysis of
demonstrations, and proposes an overview of the regional background of participants,
their reasons to participate and the social embedding of participation (individual, through
networks or organizations). He firstly analyzes a pro-Belgium demonstration (on
November 18th, 2007). This mobilization reached a relatively important number of people
(35,000 participants). The outcome of this demonstration gives a mixed message: it
shows that the issue of Belgian unity does mobilize people, and that such a mobilization
may be successful even without the support of political parties or organized civil society
(the demonstration largely resulted from initiatives of private citizens). However, the
mobilization was clearly more successful in attracting Francophones than Flemish since
the latter were drastically underrepresented in the demonstration. The largely unorganized
participation also implies that the political continuity of such events tends to be limited
and the organizers of this initiative have indeed not been able to translate it into anything
resembling a consistent social movement. Flemish nationalist mobilizations are, on the
contrary, expressions of an organized and well-structured movement. The electoral
impact of Flemish nationalism contrasts, however, with its limited capacity for more
active forms of mobilizations since demonstrations of the Flemish movement tend to
attract limited participation (essentially of activists), certainly in comparison with the proBelgium demonstration.
Looking at demonstrations unrelated to nationalism, Van Laer observes that those
organized by social movements (trade unions, NGO’s) generally are characterized by a
more or less proportional participation from the two language groups. The federalization
of Belgium has admittedly also led to the creation of regional civil society organizations
(trade unions remain national), but established patterns of cooperation and collective
mobilization do exist. The demonstration he studies that was organized around a largely
spontaneous “New Emotional Movement” with little involvement of organized social
movements in the first place involved locals, but nevertheless also attracted participants
from both language communities. The author does point out, however, that the regions
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seem to have different traditions of participation, which in Flanders seems to be more
organized and in Wallonia more individual. All in all, these demonstrations suggests that
at the level of social movements and participatory politics a common Belgian public
sphere continues to be present, notwithstanding some differences in traditions of
mobilization.
The contribution of Gianni Piazza looks at political mobilizations from a different
perspective, focusing on two examples of local mobilizations in northern Italy that
strongly diverge from the Lega model, the No Tav in Val di Susa and the No Dal Molin
in Vicenza. Both mobilizations focus strongly on local issues, but produce a different
version of localism than the Lega does. This may be related to the strategy of the
promoters of these mobilizations to frame them in universalist terms (a vision of
development and common goods respectful of the territory), as a response to accusations
of defending narrow self-interest (the “Nimby syndrome”). Both movements certainly
intend to extend their struggle beyond the strictly local, by stimulating participation from
non-locals (e.g. in solidarity demonstrations), or by establishing national networks of
local mobilization, linking northern and southern experiences in this field and promoting
solidarity between northern and southern Italy. These movements hence combine local
concerns and the establishment of broader networks of support that are extended even
beyond the country’s borders, through contacts with activists from other countries, and
propose an ideology of interlocal and interregional solidarity. The presence and practice
of such mobilizations certainly counters the logic of centrifugal regionalism. The
successes of these movements in establishing networks of solidarity contrast, however,
with their failure to influence official politics since all political parties (with the partial
exception of some of their local representatives, and of the green and radical left parties,
presently not represented in parliament) actively oppose both mobilizations. This
certainly contrasts with the impact of mobilizations the Lega promotes, e.g. against
mosques or against the presence of Roma in local communities: these mobilizations are
much more limited in scope and degree of participation but they do have an impact upon
policy decisions.
Piazza’s contribution provides several elements to understand why the
mobilizations he discusses are different from those promoted by the Lega. In the case of
the No Tav, local political traditions with strong references to the Resistance and with a
strong left-wing component definitely played a role: participants there have tended to
frame their actions in terms of these traditions and have reconstructed the identity of their
valley within this tradition, congenial to ideologies of solidarity and precluding narrow
localism. The mobilization in Vicenza, a town with a solid Christian-democrat tradition
more congenial to the Lega, could not rely on such cultural resources, and frames itself in
fact explicitly in rupture with a tradition of political passivity. As such, it is a relatively
rare example of a non-leghist social movement in that part of Italy where this party
otherwise tends to be hegemonic. Piazza highlights that the specific forms of both these
mobilizations, with a large scale and continuous local participation leads to a conflictual
relations with political parties in general, since the participants of these mobilizations
question the monopoly of political parties and of local administrators to represent them.
Concerning the Lega in particular, it is easy to imagine that a broad, pluralist and
participative movement is not congenial for this party with its highly centralized structure
and authoritarian internal culture.
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2. A PROVISIONAL CONCLUSION
A provisional conclusion of this comparison of two cases of centrifugal regionalism
certainly suggests that identity is a necessary but not sufficient component for its
emergence. A credible identity discourse definitely appears as a necessary precondition
for any questioning of the allegiance to the national state. The example of the Lega
moreover reveals that identity discourses may also be articulated with some measure of
success in cases where the “objective” elements of such an identity (language, religion
…) are weak or absent, confirming that identities are constructed and contingent. In both
cases national and regional identities have moreover undergone important evolutions
through their history. More in general, such identity discourses have constantly interacted
with broader worldviews and ideologies. This is particularly clear in the case of Italy: the
contribution of Nevola outlines how debates on Italian identity have at the same time
been debates on the norms and values of a political community.
The affirmation of centrifugal regionalism in the two cases studied here
undoubtedly has an ideological component in which economic ideas play a crucial role:
the hegemonic neoliberal vision contributes to legitimize such discourses, since it
justifies rejections of solidarity. In each case, however, we find a blend of this ideology
with more communitarian ideas. The cases studied reveal in fact how identity discourses
provide a linkage between ideologies and a specific territory, itself associated with a
particular community. Stouthuysen and Jans remind us that the solidarity of the welfare
state is intrinsically related to national identification, and the primordial role public
discourse in Belgium attributes to identifications at the level of communities and regions
hence undermines the legitimacy of transregional welfare transfers. In Italy, the Lega’s
nation-building project undoubtedly has the same goal in mind and derives part of its
legitimacy from a pre-existent tradition criticizing public policies in the South. In both
cases, an alternative regional community is proposed, the Lega’s community of
producers, the Flemish regional vision of a competitive community. These articulations
of regional identity provide the image of a community able to compete in the global
economy, but equally highlight that this position expresses the community’s endogenous
virtues. Within the national context, they (implicitly or explicitly) attribute their territorial
community a superior status, because of the presence of these endogenous virtues. Such
discourses that implicitly affirm the region’s superiority are not only articulated towards
the outsiders of the territory, but also towards the outsiders within it, immigrants
(although the understanding of the place of immigrants in the community and the vision
on policies towards immigrants definitely strongly differentiate the two cases). In both
cases, this worldview refers to the broader context of globalization and affirms itself at
the same time as a project that reflects European values, even in the case of the Lega and
its professed Euroscepticism (Huysseune, 2010). These two articulations of centrifugal
regionalism reflect at the national level the inherent tension between competition and
cooperation in the EU model and – although at this stage it is too early to evaluate the
impact of newly developing modes of EU economic governance – may exemplify the
problematic place of solidarity in the European project.
Justifications of centrifugal regionalism in the two richer regions studied in this
volume implicitly or explicitly apply a worldview in which the economic success of a
community needs to be rewarded because it expresses its moral excellence, and the
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opposition to transfers thus becomes normatively justified. Such a worldview
undoubtedly has ethnocentric features, albeit public discourse in richer regions,
particularly in Flanders but even in the case of the Lega Nord (cf. Huysseune, 2008),
tends to assume a rhetoric of benevolent paternalism towards less affluent regions. They
affirm the necessity of the Other community to undergo a process of cultural change to
acquire the virtues of the more successful community (and they tend to interpret the
abandonment of regional transfers as a means to responsibilize the less affluent regions).
The view on immigrants within the community varies from the xenophobia of the Lega
Nord (not necessarily representative of northern Italy, notwithstanding its clear impact on
official politics) or the Vlaams Belang to Flemish official multiculturalism (itself
nevertheless also characterized by a rhetoric of benevolent paternalism).
Striking in both cases is how within the public debate only very limited attention
is paid to the problematic features of such a discourse. Firstly, the linkage between
economic success and a particular community is rarely questioned, even by
spokespersons and intellectuals of the poorer regions. The worldview that classifies
territories according to their economic performance, and that assumes that this
performance unproblematically expresses the merits of the community of this territory, is
clearly hegemonic. As Oosterlynck states, what is lacking in such a perspective “is a
political economy perspective on how regions are imagined and institutionalized”
(Oosterlynck:84). He argues that regions are on the contrary “a concrete spatialization of
social relations and involves political agency” (idem:85), including the political dynamics
that have contributed to the degree of success of particular territories. A second issue that
appears only marginally in the discussion is the possible impact of the abolition of
redistributive policies on the poorer region: majority opinion in the more affluent region
simply seems to take it for granted that these policies will have a thaumaturgic impact on
the less affluent ones (a vision that certainly finds little empirical support). Spokespersons
of the latter regions contest this opinion but for a number of historical reasons (real or
presumed practices of mismanagement) seem at the same time embarrassed to reaffirm
the legitimacy of transfers since they also defend claims to regional responsibility and
economic self-reliance. A final taboo in the public debate seems to be the problematic
consequences of a competitive model of society, especially in Flanders. This is less the
case in northern Italy, where journalist, novel writers and a number of social scientists
have already a tradition of discussing the problematic features of its model of diffuse
industrialization (Huysseune, 2006:133-138), and Cento Bull’s contribution highlights
the increasing importance of such debates in recent years.
A comparison of the two cases thus reveals that, notwithstanding the historical
and present differences of identity articulations, in their present form they are both
characterized by a worldview that links economic excellence to cultural identity. The
political impact of this worldview seems determined by a number of strongly casespecific contingencies (but ultimately with some similarities). Institutions are definitely
an important variable that mediates the effects of identity discourses. In Belgium, the
mechanisms that promote centrifugal regionalism are in the first place institutional and
political: the series of reforms that have transformed the country from a unitary to a
federal state, the perpetual pressure for new reforms, and the almost exclusively
community-based party system. These dynamics, more than the tradition of Flemish
nationalism, play a predominant role in explaining centrifugal tendencies in Belgium.
However, it would be difficult to ignore the role of that tradition, since it played a major
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role in the articulation of a Flemish identity, in the delimitation of the Flemish territory,
and in providing a cultural environment (in particular within the media) in which the
Flemish identity was constantly reaffirmed. As Stouthuysen and Jans nevertheless point
out, these institutional reforms do not only result from Flemish pressure, since Walloon
desire for economic self-government equally contributed to the transformation of the
Belgian state from the 1970s on. The present institutional set-up of the country is in a
certain sense contingent, “the unexpected outcome of a political battle between parties
each having quite diverging objectives” (Stouthuysen and Jans:55).
Institutions are less prominently present in explanations of centrifugal regionalism
in northern Italy. In the background, the Italian state nevertheless plays an important role
since it is its policies deemed authoritarian, exceedingly centralist or incompetent and
corrupt that serve as an important legitimization for secession. However, centrifugal
regionalism is almost exclusively related to the emergence of a new political actor, the
Lega Nord. Biorcio and Vitale point out that this phenomenon can best be analyzed
through a constructive approach that relates “the subjective political initiative of the Lega
with the conditions and replies of the political, economic and social world” (Biorcio and
Vitale:172). The emergence of centrifugal regionalist tendencies in northern Italy does
appear as an event that has strong roots in processes of economic, social and cultural
changes in peripheral northern Italy, seemingly largely outside the world of political,
economic and cultural elites that were then captured by a new political entrepreneur.
However, this emergence itself is related to the particular context of a major crisis of the
existent party-system, and the increasing incapacity of a central political actor, the
Christian Democrat party, to act as the representative of the interests of the actors
concerned. The impact of the Lega on the institutional set-up of the Italian state
nevertheless remains more limited since this set-up, while allowing the participation of
the Lega to regional and national governments, does not have the centrifugal systemic
dynamics characteristic of the Belgian state. If anything, it seems to have been able to
absorb much of the centrifugal dynamics that the emergence of this party engendered.
However, the possibility of the introduction of fiscal federalism in a context of economic
crisis and political instability might eventually reinforce until now weak centrifugal
dynamics. Politicians and intellectuals from southern Italy (but not only) have in fact
frequently voiced their concern about the centrifugal effects that the introduction of fiscal
federalism would engender.
It is tempting to contrast an essentially institutionally-driven and elite-supported
Flemish centrifugal regionalism to its grass-roots driven equivalent in northern Italy. This
vision would, however, neglect the institutional dimension of the Italian case, including
the emergence of the Lega as an expression of social groups previously integrated in the
political system – a process that expressed their hostile reaction towards a state
increasingly unable to sustain the local economy. An exclusive focus on the grass-roots
dimension of the Lega also misses an important point, namely how elites in northern Italy
have constantly interacted with this movements and have given support to a number of
important demands of the Lega, like fiscal federalism. On the other hand, this contrast
equally underestimates grass-roots processes in Flanders, namely antipolitical sentiments
that were instrumentalized by Vlaams Belang. In both cases, the diminished capacity of
traditional parties to provide political and social integration (itself reflecting their
diminished grass-roots presence, a process that gained momentum in both countries from
the 1980s on) certainly seems an important trigger-off of such tendencies.
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In the two cases of centrifugal regionalism studied in this volume its emergence is
certainly not self-evident. Interpretations of centrifugal regionalism as a natural
phenomenon and of the success of parties questioning the nation-state as the expression
of a silent majority not represented anymore by traditional parties definitely are
inadequate and in fact contradicted by empirical data as both the contributions of Hooghe
and Biorcio and Vitale confirm. In the northern Italian case, centrifugal regionalism is
strongly related to the emergence of one party that has been able to create a solid
constituency and influence the Italian political agenda. However, until now it has clearly
not succeeded in making this identity hegemonic, and the data of Biorcio and Vitale
suggest that the party’s constituency rather forms a regional subculture with a worldview
strongly different from the rest of the northern Italian population, although several of its
programmatic proposals like fiscal federalism do attract much broader support. Flanders
undoubtedly differs from northern Italy by the hegemonic position Flemish identity has
acquired and the well-institutionalized existence of a separate Flemish public sphere.
Even in Flanders, however, this hegemony is in some aspects problematic and bereft with
contradictions, as is for example revealed in the relative low weight that the Flemish
electorate attributes to regional identity while at the same time giving strong support to
political parties proposing secession or at the very least drastic institutional reforms and
an equally drastic re-dimensioning of national redistributive mechanisms.
The contradictory elements in these data certainly point out that we have not yet
reached a full understanding of the political, social and cultural dynamics that have
engendered centrifugal regionalism. Belgian research is strong in discussing and
analyzing the consequences of institutional reforms, while in Italy discussions on
federalism often are superficial and instrumental, as Gangemi in particular points out (and
the strong focus on political leadership in the Italian public debate since the 1990s would
provide an explanation for this limited attention). Italy on the contrary has, concerning
northern Italy, a strong tradition of research at the meso-level, and we definitively have a
better idea how its appeal is embedded in local society. Such a research approach is
admittedly facilitated by a number of contingencies. Centrifugal regionalism is essentially
the programme of one party, and therefore easier to circumscribe and research, and it is
related to the easily identifiable and well-researched industrial districts in northern Italy.
The insights of this literature definitely suggest that research at the meso-level would be
an appropriate instrument in Flanders/Belgium (the research of Lien Warmenbol in this
volume is an example of such an approach). At the same time, researchers in Italy have
recently taken a more critical stance towards research with an exclusive focus on an
economic model with limited interest in the (sometimes deleterious) social consequences
this model may have engendered. In addition, we may also notice that the focus on these
districts tends to obscure the rest of northern Italy, including the support the Lega
receives there. Avanza’s chapter offers in fact a contribution in an alternative direction.
She outlines how the Lega works as a channel for social and cultural promotion for
socially marginalized persons, a dimension well worth further research.
A last difference is that Italian authors, also because the emergence of the Lega
coincided with a major crisis of the Italian party system, tend to emphasize more than in
Belgium the antipolitical dimension that is present in centrifugal regionalism (cf.
Gangemi, 2008). Several Italian contributions to this volume outline the democratic
ambiguity of centrifugal regionalism (Nevola), relate it to a democratic malaise (again
Nevola), and outline how the Lega Nord proposes “politics of simulation” which
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“practices ‘societal self-deception’ in order to address people’s growing insecurities”
(Cento Bull:105). Belgian commentators tend to interpret centrifugal regionalism more as
a crisis of institutions rather than of politics (antipolitics being rather related with the
xenophobia of Vlaams Belang or the populism of the Lijst De Decker). Only Beyen,
quoting the Indian political scientist Sunil Khilnani, refers to “the self-devouring
capacities of modern democratic politics” and outlines that by “democratizing without
thoroughly investing in the process of nation-building, the Belgian state undermined its
own basis” (Beyen:23).
A final question concerns the broader relevance of these cases. This volume
essentially focuses on the national dimension, but as outlined in the introduction it would
definitely be relevant to Europeanize our interpretation of them, especially since the
present economic crisis coincides with the multiplication of cases of centrifugal
regionalism. At first sight, the many contingencies that explain in both cases the rise of
centrifugal regionalism definitely suggest that many of the observations drawn from these
contributions are unlikely to be all valid in other European cases. The cases of Scotland
and Catalonia, for example, crucially differ by their quite different politico-ideological
context, in which the articulation of centrifugal regionalism frequently deploys a leftist
language (while in Flanders and northern Italy the opposite is clearly the case). The
presence in both cases of economic arguments that follow a similar anti-redistributionist
logic nevertheless raises the question of the exact meaning and importance of these
ideological differences (and their linkage with the European level). If we apply the
finding that institutions play an important role to explain the opportunity structure in
which centrifugal regionalism emerges (and both Scotland and Catalonia for sure offer
elements that would confirm such an interpretation), then we are indeed confronted with
a broader process that problematizes existent institutions. This may not necessarily be a
“crisis of the nation-state” (cf. Hont, 1994), also because movements supporting
centrifugal regionalism themselves propose models of nation-states, but definitely one of
existent institutional set-ups, be they “national” or “European”.
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