Religion, Cleavages, and Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Italian Case

The political science literature analyzing the genetic profile of European political parties has mainly focused on the salience, for the identity of today's parties, of four social cleavages rooted in European history: among them, a religious/secular cleavage created by the birth of the modern...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The review of faith & international affairs
Main Author: Ozzano, Luca (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group [2019]
In: The review of faith & international affairs
RelBib Classification:BJ Islam
KBA Western Europe
ZB Sociology
ZC Politics in general
Further subjects:B Europe
B Political Parties
B Religion
B cleavages
B Populism
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:The political science literature analyzing the genetic profile of European political parties has mainly focused on the salience, for the identity of today's parties, of four social cleavages rooted in European history: among them, a religious/secular cleavage created by the birth of the modern national state. However, in the past two decades, some contributions about new party types developed after the end of the Cold War have hypothesized the existence of new cleavages, based on materialist/post materialist sets of values and on the acceptance or rejection of globalization and Europeanization processes. This article will work on this latter hypothesis, by highlighting how some European parties, previously secular or focused on the "traditional" religious cleavage, are increasingly using religion-related arguments in the context of a civilizational stance focused on anti-globalization and anti-EU discourses, but most of all on the idea of migrants and Muslims as a threatening other. The second section of the paper will focus on the Italian case and on the development of a right-wing populist discourse on religion by the Lega Nord party.
ISSN:1931-7743
Contains:Enthalten in: The review of faith & international affairs
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2019.1570761