Nationalism or Economy? A Survey Experiment on Populist Mobilization in Italy

• In Event: Political Economy of Populism

Abstract

As identitarian nativist parties around the globe increasingly employ ideological appeals, the interaction of identitarian mobilization with the welfare level of individuals has emerged as a significant dilemma. A prominent strand of comparative political economy scholarship finds nationalism to supplant economic appeals to the electorate and argues for the poor to be more prone to nationalism than the rich. To disentangle the effects of nationalist versus economic mobilization, I examine voter responses to "economic" versus "nationalist/anti-immigration" stimuli for voting for the Far Right using a combination of framing and Item Count Techniques in a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample of more than 3000 Italians conducted immediately before the 2019 European Parliament election in Italy.

In contrast to predictions of “the distracted poor” theories of ideological voting, the heterogeneities in treatment effects show higher responsiveness rates to anti-immigration identity-based mobilization among the rich and the middle class. The lower income voters, on the other hand, respond more effectively to the Far Right’s anti-establishment calls that happen to invoke economic duress.

The results of the survey experiment are corroborated with additional data from exit polls and convenience sample surveys conducted in Northern Italy in the same time frame. 

Author

• Navid Mehrdad, Columbia University