The Contrasting Geographies of 'Padania': The Case of the Lega Nord in Northern Italy
Author(s): Benito Giordano
Source: Area, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 27-37
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of
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Area (2001) 33.1, 27-37
The contrasting geographies of 'Padania': the
case of the Lega Nord in Northern Italy
Benito Giordano
School of Geography, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester Ml 3 9PL
Email: benito.giordano(man.ac.uk
Revised manuscript received May 2000
The Lega Nord (Northern League) regionalist party, which has risen to prominence in
Italy in recent years, has a specific geographical focus to its political project. This is
premised essentially upon the protection of Northern Italian economic (and cultural)
interests, however, this geographical focus has been modified during the Lega Nord's
relatively short political history. This paper explores the reasons why there have been
various shifts in geographical emphasis in the party's political rhetoric as well as the ways
in which support for the Lega Nord has changed (or not) as a result of these changes.
Interestingly, the latest shift in the Lega Nord's rhetoric has seen the party attempting to
construct (and invent) a geography and an ethnicity for a place it calls 'Padania' (which
roughly corresponds to North and Central Italy) that has never existed administratively or
historically. However, as the paper argues, the Lega Nord's attempts to create a
'Padanian' political identity, have not been matched by any significant changes in its
electoral geography.
Key words: Northern Italy; Lega Nord; 'Padania', electoral geography
Introduction
The Lega Nord (Northern League), which Agnew and
Brusa (1999, 11 7) see as 'one of the most seemingly
peculiar yet intriguing political phenomena in con
temporary Europe' has been one of the key political
actors to emerge in Italian politics during the 1 990s
(Giordano 1998; Gundle and Parker 1996, 1;
Ginsborg 1996). After the initial electoral successes
of the various 'regional Leagues' in Northern Italy in
the late 1 980s, it was assumed that the Lega Nord
would eventually dissipate like so many other earlier
regionalist political outbursts in Italy (Pileri
et al. 1993). Yet, the Lega Nord has not simply
disappeared or been integrated by other political
forces, in fact far from it, instead it has managed to
become one of the primary forces of change within
Italian politics (Biorcio 1999). The reasons for the
Lega Nord's evolution are to do with its ability as a
'political actor', to take advantage of the contem
porary socio-economic, political and societal trans
formations, which Italy is undergoing and also
because of its ability to interpret, modify and present
these changes for its own political advantage and
benefit (Diamanti 1996c; Giordano 1999).
According to the Lega Nord, it is the North of Italy
and its citizens that are penalized by a corrupt,
bureaucratic and wasteful central Italian State, which
is biased towards the South of Italy and Southern
Italians (Giordano 2000). It is the Lega Nord's ability
to politically represent (as well as reproduce) this
anti-Southern sentiment felt in the North of Italy,
which has been the main reason for the growth of
the party. Moreover, the crucial strength of the Lega
Nord has been its ability to reshape its political line,
which has also meant a shift in its geographical focus,
while at the same time maintaining its zoccolo duro
(main core) of supporters and activists (Giordano
1999). It is possible to delineate several distinct
periods of growth for the Lega Nord in which its
ISSN 0004-0894 (? Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2001
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28 Giordano
main political rhetoric has been targetted at specific
geographical scales (Agnew 1995; Agnew 1997;
Diamanti 1995). Of course, there is considerable
overlap between the different periods with certain
themes being dominant throughout, however, it is
apparent that the shifts in geographical foci have
been relatively distinct from one phase to another.
During the 1 980s, the separate 'regional Leagues'
stressed ethno-regional differences as a way of gain
ing electoral support, however, this proved to be
problematic (Agnew 1995). In 1991, after the forma
tion of the Lega Nord, the party shifted away from an
emphasis on ethno-regionalism to endorse its dis
course of federalism. This was based on the division
of Italy into three macro-regions, the North, Centre
and South. The Lega Nord used the territorial refer
ence to the 'North' as an effective way of represent
ing and integrating the problems and protests of the
diverse social sectors within the North of Italy
(Agnew 1995; Diamanti 1995).
In its most recent phase of development, the party
has rejected its federalist rhetoric in favour of the
hard-line discourse of secession and independence
of 'Padania" from the rest of Italy. The rhetoric of
'Padania' is the most intriguing geographical con
struction that the Lega Nord has used to try to
mobilize support. The Latin term 'Padania' refers to
the basin of the River Po in Northern Italy, but the
interesting thing is that a place called 'Padania' has
never existed administratively or historically. Instead,
the Lega Nord has attempted to construct (and
invent) a geography and a history in order to justify
its territorial and political claims (Diamanti 1996a).
With the creation of 'Padania' the Lega Nord aims to
create a kind of 'neo-ethnicity' for a 'nation' which is
made up of citizens who do not necessarily have a
common history, culture or language but an identity
derived from similar socio-economic values and atti
tudes. This is combined with an insufferance against
Rome and the central Italian Government, and the
constraints that it has allegedly placed upon the
economy and society of the North of Italy. The Lega
Nord is attempting to become a kind of 'volkspartei'
or 'people's party' and is trying to normalize the
discourse of secession as the only solution for the
North and Centre of Italy. Indeed, Agnew and Brusa
argue that
the Lega Nord maybe the first authentic post-modernist
territorial political movement in its self-conscious
manipulation of territorial imagery to create a sense of
cultural/economic difference with an existing state of
which it is part. (Agnew and Brusa 1999, 123)
GRANDE
PADAN IAFEDERALISMO O %
INDIPENDENZeA (z
Figure 1 The Lega Nord's geographical representation
of the boundaries of 'Padania', taken from
the party's 1996 National election campaign
The Lega Nord has deliberately given 'Padania' a
territorial boundary in order to reify its cultural claims
about northern Italian cultural distinctiveness. How
ever, the interesting thing to note is that the territorial
boundaries of 'Padania' are vaguely defined, which is
part of a conscious strategy of the Lega Nord to keep
the party's political opponents off-guard (Agnew and
Brusa 1999) (see Figure 1). As Biorcio (1997, 204)
argues what seems to matter more to Bossi and the
Lega Nord party militants is the fact that 'Padania'
represents a common set of cultural values that
distinguishes it and its people from the rest of Italy
rather than any precise cartographic boundaries.
Therefore, as Agnew and Brusa argue
territory matters crucially to the political imaginations of
the Lega Nord but from this point of view territory
defines a culture associated with a myriad of northern
Italian localities rather than a homogeneous 'Padanian'
culture defining a 'Padanian' territory. (Agnew and
Brusa 1999, 124)
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The contrasting geographies of 'Padania' 29
For the Lega Nord, it is the geographical entity of
'Padania' that 'provides the basis for making a set of
historical claims rather than a set of historical claims
providing the basis for making a geographical claim'
(Agnew and Brusa 1999, 123). Undoubtedly, the
Lega Nord's discourse of 'Padania' has provided the
party, and especially its leader Bossi, with a powerful
tool with which to maintain its political distinctive
ness. It has ensured that the party has gained
renewed media coverage and provoked consider
able public controversy across the whole of Italy
(and in other countries). However, as the next two
sections of this paper discuss, the changing geo
graphical focus of the Lega Nord and its attempts to
expand its imagined political community across a
place called 'Padania' have not been successful.
Instead, the enduring feature of the electoral geogra
phy of the party is that it seems unable to spread
its political support outside its original political
heartlands.
The changing geographical rhetoric of
the Lega Nord
The first phase of growth for the Lega Nord stemmed
from 1 979 to 1 989 (Biorcio 1997). It was during this
period that the 'regional Leagues' of Northern Italy
gained increasing political support and exposure,
especially in regions such as Lombardy and Veneto.
The various regional Leagues stressed ethnoregional
differences (dialect, behaviour, attitudes etc.) in their
political rhetoric in order to try to motivate a sense of
regional identity (Agnew 1995). In the Veneto region
this rhetoric proved succesful as the Liga Veneta
(Venetian League) made significant electoral
advances during the late 1980s and by the 1987
national election the party gained around four per
cent of the vote in the provinces of Vicenza, Treviso
and Belluno in the Veneto region (see Figure 2). In
addition, as Agnew (1995, 166) argues, 'the Lega
Lombarda (Lombard League), using phrases such as
"region as nation"', was particularly successful
in areas such as Varese, Bergamo and Como in
Lombardy, where there is a strong history of localism.
The ethnoregional rhetoric proved to be largely
unsuccessful because throughout Northern Italy
local, as well as national, identifications are much
stronger than regional ones such as that of 'Lombard'
(Agnew 1995). Thus, between 1989 and 1992, the
creation of the Lega Nord, out of the amalgamation
of five other 'regional Leagues' from the regions of
Veneto, Piemonte, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna and
Toscana (later the Lega Nord expanded into the
regions of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, Trentino Alto-Adige,
Valle d'Aosta, Umbria and Marche) ushered in a
second shift in the party's rhetoric. This was insti
gated by Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Lombard
League, who became the leader of the Lega Nord.
Biorcio (1 997, 3 7) argues that this was the period in
which the fundamental components of the party's
political identity and project were formulated.
During this second phase, the geographical rheto
ric of the Lega Nord switched from the local and
regional to the idea to divide Italy into a federal state
divided into three macro-regions, the North, Centre
and South. 'The Lega Nord's federal project was
accompanied by a concise but clear 'Provisional
Federal Constitution', which was composed of ten
articles. This detailed presidential and confederal
arrangements and proposed an 'Italian Union' as a
free association of three Republics (North, Centre,
South) with the separate joining of the five 'auton
omous regions' of Italy (Valle d'Aosta, Trentino Alto
Adige, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, as part of the North;
Sicily and Sardinia as part of the South). The central
government was to be composed of a Premier,
directly elected by all the citizens of the Union,
assisted by a 'Directory' made up of the presidents
of the eight constituting units, able to act only
by consensus in economic and financial matters'
(Poche 1994, 46). Underpinning the Lega Nord's
federal project was the assumption that within Italy
there were in fact three distinct and separate
'societies', which were largely defined by their socio
economic differences. The Lega Nord used the terri
torial reference of the 'North' as an effective way of
representing and integrating the problems and pro
tests of the diverse social sectors within the North of
Italy (Agnew 1995). This allowed the 'North' to be
counterposed against 'Rome', the central state, and
the traditional parties and also exclude the South
from the North of Italy (Poche 1994, 46).
The 1992 national election confirmed the success
of the Lega Nord's federal rhetoric when it gained
three million votes, which was 8.7 per cent of the
national electorate and meant that the party had 81
elected representatives in the Italian Parliament (55
Deputies and 24 Senators). In Lombardy, the party
gained over 23 per cent of the vote, (which meant
that it was only one per cent behind the Christian
Democrat [DC] party) and 18 per cent in Veneto
(where other autonomist parties won a further 8%)
(Diamanti 1 996c). Significantly, the support for
the Lega Nord also expanded into other areas of
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30 Giordano
Northern Italy, most notably in the autonomous
regions of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and Trentino Alto
Adige as well as further south into Emilia-Romagna,
especially in the provinces of Piacenza and Parma,
which border Lombardy and Veneto. This was very
significant because, for the first time, the Lega Nord's
concern with a wider geographical focus was actu
ally reflected in a significant expansion of its electoral
support in areas where it had previously been weak
(Diamanti 1995, 35) (see Table 1).
The third phase of growth for the Lega Nord was
between 1993 and 1994. This coincided with the
increasing political instability within Italy as a result of
the corruption scandals that became known as
'tangentopoli' ('kick-back city') that involved the
majority of the major political parties and in particu
lar the DC party. Agnew (1995, 1 59) argues that
although corruption was not new in Italy, its system
atic nature was a surprise to many Italian citizens.
Indeed, as the corruption investigations gathered
pace, this caused the disintegration of the two main
parties of government (the DC and the Italian Com
munist Party [PCI]). Subsequently, the whole political
system was thrown into turmoil. Diamanti (1995, 90)
explains that the chief beneficiary of these changes
was the Lega Nord, which gained support through
out the North of Italy. Indeed, the administrative
elections of June 1 993 saw the Lega Nord winning
control of some of the most important northern
cities, in particular Marco Formentini of the Lega
Nord was elected as Mayor of Milan, the capital of
the 'productive North' of Italy (Diamanti 1 996c,
1 6).
It was during this third phase that the political
rhetoric of the Lega Nord was modified as Bossi
aimed to make the Lega Nord a mainstream, national
political force, which was able to fill the hiatus left by
the decline of the traditional parties. Once again the
Lega Nord reconfigured its geographical focus,
which meant that the party no longer presented itself
as an 'anti-system' party because it was operating in
a political and economic environment in which it
seemed all parties were in 'opposition' because of
the massive changes that were taking place in Italian
politics. As Agnew argues, the shift in the Lega
Nord's rhetoric to the national scale
shows how even the most determinedly ethnoregional
ist movements can get dragged into political argument
appropriate to the state as a whole as it tried to expand
it's support and move from opposition to power
(Agnew 1995, 169)
The Lega Nord became part of the centre-right
government coalition, which gained a majority in the
1994 national Italian election. This coalition was
called Polo per la liberta (or Freedom Pole) and was
led by Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (or 'Go Italy')
party as well as the neo-fascist Alleanza Nazionale2
party. However, the entry onto the Italian political
scene of the Forza Italia party effectively took centre
stage away from the Lega Nord. Although the Lega
Nord gained 8.4 per cent of the national vote, which
was only a decline of 0.3 per cent from 1992, its vote
had in fact stagnated or declined in all the regions of
Northern Italy (see Table 1). The party lost support
in the areas where it had not managed to gain a
significant electoral base, most notably in Central
Italy; also those areas where it had gained higher
levels of support more recently, for example, in the
main metropolitan areas of Northern Italy, especially
in Milan, but also in Liguria and Trentino. Indeed, the
Lega Nord's electoral geography of 1994 was to a
large extent a mirror image of its original profile
because the constituencies in which support for the
Lega Nord exceeded 25.5 per cent of the vote
were situated in the provinces of Belluno, Treviso,
Vicenza, Verona, Bergamo, Como, Varese, non
metropolitan Milan, and Cuneo. These were pre
cisely the areas in which the Lega Lombarda and the
Liga Veneta first gained support (with the only
exception of non-metropolitan Milan) (Diamanti
1996c, 125).
The Lega Nord had succeeded in becoming a
national political force, which was clearly a success
for a relatively small, regionally-based party. On the
other hand, it quickly became clear that being part of
the ruling coalition would cause the party some
problems. The party suffered badly within the gov
erning alliance with Berlusconi because, besides
undermining the Lega Nord's support from the
inside, his party was able to acquire external support,
by appealing to social groups who were hostile to
the party, above all in the South (Diamanti 1996c,
123). Moreover, the Lega Nord found itself allied to
the neo-fascist Alleanza Nazionale, which favoured a
strong central Italian State and no regional auton
omy. In effect, the Lega Nord was linked to its most
hostile political opponents, which only served further
to undermine and compromise the image and iden
tity of the party. The result was that shortly after the
March 1994 elections, the support for the Forza
Italia, according to its own polls, passed from eight
per cent to 30 per cent, while that for the Lega Nord
went in the opposite direction from 16 per cent to
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The contrasting geographies of 'Padania' 31
eight per cent. It was clear that the Lega Nord's
chosen electoral ally in a short space of time ironi
cally became its chief political opponent (Diamanti
1996c, 123).
The European elections of June 1994 confirmed
the continued decline in electoral support for the
Lega Nord (see Table 1). In less than four months
after the national elections, in every region of the
North of Italy, the vote for the Lega Nord had
dropped to six per cent, while the vote for the Forza
Italia had risen to 30 per cent. However, the Lega
Nord suffered some of its biggest losses to the Forza
Italia, especially in its previously relatively strong
heartlands of support in the north of Lombardy and
Veneto (Diamanti 1995, 150).
The period from 1995 onwards marked the
beginning of the fourth phase for the Lega Nord
during which the party abandoned its role in gov
ernment in order to redefine its role within the
general framework of the Italian political system
(Biorcio 1997, 37). Bossi and the Lega Nord pro
gressively moved from being an 'antagonistic ally'
to an out and out opponent of Forza Italia and
Alleanza Nazionale. Indeed, Bossi chose to leave
the governing coalition, which caused its collapse
and instigated a political crisis in Italy (Diamanti
1996c, 126). However, as Diamanti (1996c, 127)
points out, the move by Bossi to leave the coali
tion, brought to a head, for two reasons, the
contradictions inside the Lega Nord, which had
been building up for months.
* Firstly, there was a section of Lega Nord parlia
mentarians who had affiliations to the centre-right
and who basically viewed the Lega Nord as the
federal wing of the Forza Italia.
* Secondly, this problem was compounded by the
electoral pact, which the Lega Nord and the Forza
Italia had struck. Even though the Lega Nord only
obtained eight per cent of the national vote in the
1994 elections it succeeded in obtaining 180
parliamentary representatives thanks to the elec
toral pact with Forza Italia. However, the problem
for the Lega Nord was that more than half of
the Lega Nord's electorate did not correspond
to a distinct base of support and the electorate's
political affiliations were in fact closer to Forza
Italia than to the Lega Nord.
The break with the governing coalition meant the
exit of around one-third of all the Lega Nord parlia
mentarians (more than 50 out of 180). This was
obviously a very difficult period for the Lega Nord,
which saw it not only losing a stake in government,
but also losing a considerable base of its electoral
support.
Another national election was called in April 1996
in an attempt to end the period of political in
stability, which followed the decline of Berlusconi's
coalition government. This election represented a
key turning point in the political fortunes of the Lega
Nord as the results of the election signalled its
re-emergence. At the end of the experience within
government, the failure of Bossi to present the Lega
Nord as a 'new' political force as well as the party
that represented the whole of the North of Italy,
resulted in an identity crisis for the party (Diamanti
1 996a, 73). In the face of declining electoral support,
the political strategy of Bossi was to return to organ
izing its political project upon the two main themes,
which had prefigured its earlier growth and
success-a political territorial identity and an 'anti
system' stance and image.
The Lega Nord's solution was the rhetorical cre
ation of a place it called 'Padania', which represents
the latest shift in the party's geographical focus and is
clearly an attempt to reconfirm its differences from
the other political parties. Moreover, Bossi resorted
to using even more aggressive and inflammatory
language as well as changing the name of the party
to Lega Nord per l'lndipendenza della Padania
(Northern League for the Independence of Padania).
In addition, perhaps more importantly for the Lega
Nord, the party restored its links between its political
organization and territory; this was something that
had been very important but had largely been lost
with the Lega Nord's stake in government. This
re-emphasis on territory is an attempt by the Lega
Nord to create what Diamanti (1 996a, 81 ) defines as
a 'virtual territory and homeland' for the people of
the North of Italy. However, as the next section
examines, the Lega Nord's rhetorical return to an
emphasis on territory has not been matched by an
actual expansion of support across the whole of
'Padania'.
The 1996 national election and the Lega
Nord's 'march back to the past'
The national election of April 1996 was the first
opportunity that the Lega Nord had to test its
newly-formulated rhetoric focusing on the secession
of 'Padania'. The party entered the 1996 election on
its own without making any electoral pacts and Bossi
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32 Giordano
Table 1 The electoral results of the Lega Nord in national and European elections in Italy between 1992 and 1996*
Region Province 1992 National 1994 National 1994 European 1996 National
Val D'Aosta Aosta 0.5 0.5 2.5 7.5
Piedmont Torino 13.7 11.9 9 9.8
Cuneo 20.3 25.3 1 7.3 29.9
Novara 18.1 17.2 13.2 13.5
Vercelli 20.5 18.8 12.8 17
Asti 18.2 19.9 15 20.2
Alessandria 1 7.1 1 7.2 12 16.4
Liguria Genova 14.3 11.4 8.1 9.8
Savona 1 7.2 13 9.5 10.6
Imperia 16.6 15.6 10 16.9
La Spezia 8.2 5.8 4.2 5.1
Lombardy Sondrio 25.9 32.1 24 38.8
Brescia 24.8 25.7 21.7 26.7
Como 28.1 27.6 21.3 24.9
Bergamo 25.6 28.7 24.4 25.8
Milano 19.7 17.4 13.7 16.8
Mantova 22.1 18.1 14.2 19.8
Varese 29.5 30.8 26.1 31.6
Pavia 22 19.8 15 19.7
Cremona 21.3 18.3 13.9 18.4
Veneto Belluno 27.9 32.4 20.6 37.6
Treviso 21.5 28.6 20.8 26.8
Vicenza 19.6 28.1 20.8 25.6
Venezia 13.4 15.4 9.8 15.4
Verona 20.6 20.8 17.1 21.6
Padova 14.8 1 7.2 12.4 1 7.2
Rovigo 8.5 10.4 6.9 13.5
Trentino Alto-Adige Bolzano 3.6 2.4 1.3 4.5
Trento 13.9 12.5 7.9 14.5
Friuli Venezia Guilia Udine 1 7.9 20.6 13.5 19.3
Pordenone 18.8 21.7 14.3 28.6
Gorizia 12.4 10.9 7.5 14.5
Trieste 8 7.6 4.9 11.7
Emilia-Romagna Piacenza 1 7.5 15.2 10.4 15.7
Parma 17.4 12.7 9 12.2
Ferrara 7.7 4.7 3 6.4
Reggio Nell-Emilia 10 6.3 4.3 6.2
Modena 10.8 6.5 4.5 6.1
Bologna 7.7 4.3 2.8 3.6
Ravenna 6 4.3 2.9 4.3
Forli 5.8 3.9 2.7 3.9
Tuscany Massa 4.7 3.9 2.6 2.8
Lucca 4.1 3.8 2.5 3.2
Firenze 2.8 1.9 1.4 2.5
Pistoia 4 2.8 2.3 2.5
Arezzo 2.3 1.4 1.1 1.5
Pisa 3.6 2.1 1.5 1.4
Siena 2.2 1.3 1.1 1.3
Grosseto 2.5 1.3 1 1.2
Livorno 2.5 1.5 1.2 1.2
contd
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The contrasting geographies of 'Padania' 33
Table 1 (Continued)
Region Province 1992 National 1994 National 1994 European 1996 National
Marche Pesaro ** ** ** 1.8
Ancona ** ** ** 1.3
Macerata ** ** ** 1.4
Ascoli Piceno ** ** ** 0.8
Umbria Perugia ** ** ** 1.2
Terni ** ** ** 0.7
Key *see Figure 2 for map of
**indicates no result for the L
Source: Ufficio Analisi Statistich
presented the vote for the
cal referendum in which t
were voting for 'independe
against the Left and Right co
(Bobbio 1996). The main lin
was that the two main c
the same because they simp
traditional socio-economic
within Italy (Diamanti 1996
Before the election it was p
for the Lega Nord would b
level. In the weeks prece
Lega Nord's vote was estim
Deputies and less than ten
1996). The outcome of the
surprising result for the Leg
actually realized the highes
history. The result was grea
estimates and guaranteed t
presence in the Italian Pa
parliamentarians and about f
was 10.1 per cent of the el
This election marked the ele
short but intense political h
which actually re-launched t
it regained its position as on
forces within Italian politi
result was also a problemat
mainly because it was not ab
support throughout the w
over, the result reinforced t
the party is limited to certa
cal areas within the North of
even more segmented politi
(Diamanti 1996a, 81-5).
In analysing the results of t
Lega Nord, Diamanti (1 99
areas that mad
strength for th
very similar in
argues that the
five separate e
which were rela
at the same tim
terms of polit
profiles.
The zone of relative electoral strength for the Lega
Nord corresponds to what Diamanti (1 996a, 86)
calls the 'profound North' (see Table 2). This zone
contained 31 electoral constituencies in which the
Lega Nord gained an average vote of 42 per cent in
the Majority and 40 per cent in the Proportional part
of the election. It is this zone that corresponds to the
area in which the Lega Nord has always gained its
highest levels of support since its creation. As Table 3
shows, this is one of the most densely industrialized
regions in the North of Italy and has a number of
small industrial firms and districts, a low level of
unemployment and a lower level of urbanization.
Also, this was one of the main zones of support for
the DC, which got 34 per cent of the vote in the
1992 election (Diamanti 1996a, 88).
It is apparent, therefore, that the Lega Nord's
rhetoric about the existence of a specific 'Padanian
imagined community' is not reflected in its electoral
geography. In fact, rather than being in control of
'Padania', the electoral consensus of the Lega Nord
is concentrated in a well-defined, but much smaller
area, that Diamanti (1 996b, 56) calls 'pedemon
tania'3. This area covers part of the north-east of
Northern Italy, from Udine and Pordenone to the
provinces of Belluno, Vicenza and Treviso to the
provinces of Brescia, Bergamo, Sondrio, Como and
Varese in Lombardy, and finally to the province of
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34 Giordano
omo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ orii
osta ares eram rev9 son
g~~~~~ ~atv 0Rtoi0.9
Figue 2Percntaesvotenfriteea egg 19 atoa eeto Mnsryrfteaneio96
Cuneo in Piedmont. This area is remarkably socio
economically homogeneous, based upon a concen
tration of small and medium-sized firms, which in the
last 20 years has become the so-called industrialized
or 'opulent periphery' of Northern Italy (Allum and
Diamanti 1996, 1 52) (see Figure 2). It is also the area
in which the DC traditionally gained most support,
however, the DC has declined which has impacted
the previously relatively stable socio-political identity
(or 'white sub-culture') of such areas. Lastly, it is
important to note that, in spite of the Lega Nord's
shift in geographical focus, its areas of relative elec
toral strength are still those in which the Liga Veneta
and Lega Lombarda gained their first electoral suc
cesses in the 1 980s and have remained the political
heartlands of support for the party ever since.
Conclusions
Undoubtedly, the Lega Nord has undergone a sig
nificant rise to political prominence in Italy in recent
years. The party has benefitted from (and been
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The contrasting geographies of 'Padania' 35
Table 2 Typologies of the electoral constituencies of the North, based on the results of the 21 April 1996: electoral
orientations
'Open 'North of 'Profound 'North of Trentino Total
North' the Left' North' the Right' Alto Adige
Constituencies
Absolute values 97 21 31 22 8 179
Percentage values 54.2 11.7 1 7.3 12.3 4.5 100
Urban constituencies 30.9 61.9 3.2 63.6 25.0 33.5
1996 election
Majority part (%Ol)
Ulivo 37.2 51.6 28.7 38.5 27.5 37.1
Polo per la liberta 35.9 35.0 28.5 45.9 24.0 35.2
Lega Nord 25.6 12.1 42.4 14.0 18.7 25.3
Others 1.3 1.3 0.4 1.7 29.9 2.3
Proportional part (%lo)
PDS 1 5.0 25.9 8.3 1 7.7 8.6 1 5.2
Popolari (DC) 7.1 5.4 7.8 5.0 19.1 7.3
Forza Italia 21.3 18.8 17.5 28.8 13.6 20.9
Alleanza Nazionale 11.2 12.0 7.7 13.2 11.1 11.0
Lega Nord 23.4 10.5 40.4 12.4 12.6 23.0
1992 Election
DC 25.5 18.1 34.3 18.1 21.3 25.1
PSI (Socialists) 12.8 13.0 10.0 13.9 6.7 12.2
PDS 11.9 1 9.8 6.8 1 3.9 4.9 11.9
Lega Nord 19.8 12.9 23.8 17.5 8.8 18.9
Source: Diamanti 1996a, 87
Table 3 Typologies of the electoral constituencies
socio-economic characteristics
'Open 'North of 'Profound '
North' the Left' North' the
Urban constituencies (%) 30.9 61.9 3.2 63.6 25.0 33.5
No. of firms per 1000 inhabitants 75.4 65.2 80.7 68.9 91.5 75.0
No. of employees (%)
Industry 44.7 36.2 55.9 30.0 32.3 43.3
Commerce 21.8 22.6 18.6 24.8 30.3 22.1
Services 33.5 41.2 25.5 45.2 37.5 34.6
Unemployed (as % of the active population) 9.9 13.3 7.5 10.1 5.5 9.7
Source: Diamanti 1 996a, 88
implicated in) the transformations which have altered
the face of Italian politics, economy and society
during the last decade or so. Italian citizens were
becoming increasingly resentful at emerging econ
omic and political problems. This was especially the
case in the North of the country, where there were
widespread fears that the years of 'economic boom'
were coming to an end. In the midst of this scenario,
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36 Giordano
the Lega Nord was successful because it was able to
exploit the problems facing the people of the North
of Italy as well as interpret and modify their concerns
for its own political advancement.
The main asset of the party has been its ability to
change its political rhetoric and hence its geographi
cal focus in order to take advantage of the changing
political situation in Italy as well as expand its level of
electoral support. The party's initial political rhetoric
emphasized the local and regional scale, then it was
drawn into the national scale with its federalist
stance and most recently it has returned to an
emphasis on local territory with the creation of
'Padania'. However, as the electoral performance of
the Lega Nord in recent elections clearly shows, this
has not been matched by an expansion of support
outside its main political heartlands. In fact, the areas
of relative electoral strength for the Lega Nord have
remained more or less the same since its creation.
The only exception to this was when the party
endorsed the creation of a federal Italian state, which
was accompanied by a short-lived expansion of
the party's electoral support in the 1992 national
election.
The Lega Nord's result in the 1 996 national elec
tion clearly confirmed the continued persistence
of a specific electoral geography that corresponds
more to the pedemontania region of Northern Italy.
Indeed, there was a deepening of electoral support
for the Lega Nord in the areas in which the party
gained its original success. The contrast between the
geographical claims of the Lega Nord about the
extent of its 'imagined political community' and its
actual geography of support has been a feature
throughout the short, but intense political life of the
Lega Nord. Clearly this tension remains marked with
the creation of 'Padania'.
Since the 1996 elections the political fortunes of
the Lega Nord have subsided somewhat. Firstly, in
the local elections of April 1997 the party did badly,
with its share of the vote dropping from 40 per cent
in 1993 to only 15 per cent in 1997 (Economist
1997a). Moreover, the Lega Nord mayor of Milan
(Marco Formentini) was defeated and the party also
lost the provincial council of Mantua, which is the
city of its self-proclaimed parliament. In addition, the
Lega Nord only gained one-tenth of the vote in
Venice, which is the symbolic capital of 'Padania'
(Economist 1 997b). Moreover, in the 1999 European
elections, the Lega Nord continued to lose support;
the party's share of the national vote declining from
6 to 4.5 per cent.
Secondly, throughout its history the Lega Nord has
been beset by internal conflicts, however, most
recently these have become even more prevalent as
well as divisive. These internal tensions came to a
head at the end of 1998 when a group of party
officials from the Liga Veneta, led by Fabrizio
Comencini, declared the party independent from the
Lega Nord. According to the Lega Nord, the number
of dissenters from the party was relatively small but
in reality this split was serious and showed that the
Lega Nord is still beset by internal divisions (Pajetta
1998). A second and potentially more damaging split
occurred in the summer of 1999 when the Lega
Nord's head of the region of Piedmont, Domenico
Comino, was expelled from the party by Bossi. The
reason was that Comino and some of his fellow party
representatives in Piedmont wanted to form elec
toral alliances with Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.
According to Bossi, this was a conspiracy that could
only contribute to the downfall of the party and so
he intervened to expel a number of senior party
officials (Colaprico 1999). This led to a period of
instability for the Lega Nord, with Bossi in particular
gaining a lot of negative media coverage. The
implications of this split remain to be seen.
The future of the Lega Nord is far from clear. The
endorsement of 'Padania' ensured that the party
regained its political identity and it seemed to reverse
the political fortunes of the party. However, since the
1996 national election, the Lega Nord has seen its
support once again decline, which means that the
party does not have a consistent zone of electoral
support across 'Padania' to support its political rheto
ric. However, the issue of a 'Padanian' imagined
political community raises other important questions
about the ways in which contemporary political
and cultural identities are created. The invention of
'Padania' shows that such identities do not neces
sarily have to be inherited from primordial roots but
can actually be created almost from scratch in con
temporary society. Indeed, as Agnew and Brusa
point out
what is remarkable in the case of Northern Italy today is
that we can see before our eyes the attempted inven
tion of an identity that has had no prior existence.
(Agnew and Brusa 1999, 126)
It remains to be seen whether this process will
continue even if the Lega Nord cannot manage to
gain consistent levels of electoral support across
'Padania'.
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The contrasting geographies of 'Padania' 37
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Economic and Social
Research Council for providing the funding for this
research via a Studentship Award (Award Number
R00429434128). I am grateful to David Sadler and
Joe Painter for providing me with invaluable advice
and assistance during the course of this research. For
the enormous amount of help and assistance that I
got during the fieldwork undertaken in Italy, I would
like to thank Professor Carlo Brusa (and family) and
Danilo Croce (and family). Also, I want to thank
Neil Mathews in the School of Geography at the
University of Manchester as well as the three
anonymous referees who provided very useful and
constructive comments on this piece of work.
Notes
1 According to the LN, the 14 'nations' which constitute
'Padania' are Alto-Adige or Sidtirol, Emilia, Friuli, Liguria,
Lombardy, Marche, Piedmont, Romagna, Toscany,
Trentino, Trieste, Umbria, Val d'Aosta and Veneto.
2 The Alleanza Nazionale is the heir of the fascist party in
Italy; its leader is called Gianfranco Fini.
3 Pedemontania refers to the Alpine foothills zone of the
North of Italy.
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