Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Migration represents one of the key issues in both Italian and European politics, and it has triggered EU-wide debates and negotiations, alongside alarmist and often sensationalist news reporting on the activities of government, party and social movement actors. The Politics of Migration in Italy explores what happens when previously undiscussed issues become central to political agendas and are publicly debated in the mass media. Examining how political actors engage with the issue of migration in electoral campaigning, this book highlights how complex policy issues are addressed selectively by political entrepreneurs and how the responses of political actors are influenced by strategic incentives and ongoing events. This book studies the dynamics of the politicization of the immigration issue across three local contexts in Italy-Prato, Milan and Rome-which differ systematically with respect to crucial economic, cultural and security dimensions of immigration. Offering an innovative exploration of party competition and migration in Italy, as well as providing the conceptual and analytical tools to understand how these dynamics play out beyond the Italian case, this book is essential reading for students, scholars and policymakers working in the areas of migration studies, agenda-setting and European politics more generally.

In 2003, the occupation of a state-owned building in Rome led to the emergence of a new extreme-right youth movement: CasaPound Italia (CPI). Its members described themselves as 'Fascists of the Third Millennium', and were unabashed about their admiration for Benito Mussolini. Over the next 15 years, they would take to the street, contest national elections, open over a hundred centres across Italy, and capture the attention of the Italian public. While CPI can count only on a few thousands votes, it enjoys disproportionate attention in public debates from the media. So what exactly is CasaPound? How can we explain the high profile achieved by such a nostalgic group with no electoral support?

In this book, Caterina Froio, Pietro Castelli Gattinara, Giorgia Bulli and Matteo Albanese explore CasaPound Italia and its particular political strategy combining the organization and style of both political parties and social movements and bringing together extreme-right ideas and pop-culture symbols. They contend that this strategy of hybridization allowed a fringe organization like CasaPound to consolidate its position within the Italian far-right milieu, but also, crucially, to make extreme-right ideas routine in public debates. The authors illustrate this argument drawing on unique empirical material gathered during five years of research, including several months of overt observation at concerts and events, face-to-face interviews, and the qualitative and quantitative analysis of online and offline campaigns.

By describing how hybridization grants extremist groups the leeway to expand their reach and penetrate mainstream political debates, this book is core reading for anyone concerned about the nature and growth of far-right politics in contemporary democracies. Providing a fresh insight as to how contemporary extreme-right groups organize to capture public attention, this study will also be of interest to students, scholars and activists interested in the complex relationship between party competition and street protest more generally.

Case occupate, sale concerti, “spazi non conformi”: luoghi dove far politica, volontariato e praticare il “fascismo sociale”  all’insegna di un’ibridazione simbolica che vede coesistere Mussolini e Che Guevara, Ezra Pound e Rino Gaetano, Julius Evola e Corto Maltese. Luoghi anche di auto-riconoscimento subculturale fatto di pub, letture selezionate, rock identitario, ma soprattutto opposizione ad un’estrema destra partitica descritta come autoreferenziale e stantia. È così che si presenta CasaPound Italia all’interno e all’esterno del proprio universo sociale e valoriale.
Attraverso un’inedita retorica del “Fascismo del Terzo Millennio”, CasaPound legge l’attuale crisi economica, politica e di partecipazione attraverso forme di attivismo deliberatamente alternative rispetto alla mobilitazione politica tradizionale della propria area. Categorie ideologiche ispirate al fascismo storico e rivitalizzate attraverso un connubio di idea-azione a cui non è estraneo l’uso della violenza hanno permesso al gruppo di far breccia tra le generazioni dei più giovani e le categorie sociali più colpite dalla crisi economica.

Questo volume analizza i percorsi di militanza, l’attivismo politico e le forme di mobilitazione di CasaPound Italia, ricostruendone le radici ideologiche e gli orizzonti valoriali, approfondendo il progetto identitario subculturale e discutendone le strategie politiche a livello nazionale ed europeo.
Un lavoro attento nato da interviste, conversazioni, partecipazione a riti collettivi, manifestazioni politiche del gruppo, che costituisce un contributo alla comprensione della natura politica dei nuovi fenomeni di coinvolgimento al tempo della crisi.

Revisori del volume: Prof. Marco Tarchi (UNIFI) e Dimitri Deliolanes (ERT, Grecia)

Over the past decades, the far right has become one of the most studied phenomena in international political science, attracting more attention than all other party families combined. This article critically assesses the scholarly progress made so far and discusses what future research on the far right should focus on. It argues that although the number of studies has grown disproportionately, scholars have been slow in acknowledging that far-right politics have entered a new phase, where traditional aspects progressively lost momentum and new ones acquired central stage. To understand the transformations in the contemporary far right, scholars must address three shortcomings of international comparative research-Eurocentrism, Electoralism and Externalism. Today, we need to re-embed the study of the far right into the broader literature on party politics and political sociology, acknowledging the diversity that exists within the far right, its diffusion beyond (western) Europe and its mobilization outside the electoral arena.

En France, en Italie et dans l’Arizona (États-Unis), des groupes, des élus et des citoyens sont engagés dans la construction de la migration comme « problème » public. Quelles sont les actions, initiatives et stratégies discursives de ces entrepreneurs de cause anti-migrants ? La démarche comparative révèle la convergence des discours et des modes d’action tout en soulignant les différentes modalités d’articulation de ces acteurs dans leurs systèmes politiques respectifs. Les deux enquêtes menées en Arizona, pour l’une, en Italie et en France, pour l’autre, permettent d’identifier trois types d’opposition à l’immigration : des actions directes contre l’arrivée de migrants, se nourrissant d’un discours de l’abandon de l’État ; des actions qui ont trait à l’élaboration d’un savoir organisé commun à l’ensemble du mouvement ; des actions visant à produire une réaction politique, dans le but de mettre à l’agenda le contrôle migratoire et frontalier. Il convient dès lors de déterminer ce qui, dans ces actions, relève du vigilantisme, de l’action collective ou de l’action publique.

Considering  the  case  of  migration,  the  paper  develops  a  dimensional framework for the analysis of the politicization of complex issues in public debates. It  argues  that  since  cross-sectoral  issues  are  multidimensional  in  nature,  public debates  about  them  are  best  understood  in  terms  of  selective  emphasis  over  their constitutive dimensions. Theoretically, the  paper  combines structural and strategic approaches  to  explain  selective  emphasis  in  public  debates  on  migration.  Empiri-cally,  it  examines  seven  West  European  countries  from  1995  to  2009  based  on claims-making  data collected by the  Support and  Opposition  to  Migration project team.  Focusing  on  both  actor-level  and  political  opportunity  determinants  of  the salience of issue dimensions, the analysis examines the varying importance attrib-uted to four constitutive dimensions of the immigration issue, corresponding to soci-oeconomic, cultural and religious, security and civic aspects. The findings confirm that  the  composition  of  public  debates  on  complex  issues  is  not  restricted  to  one single  understanding,  but  changes  depending  on  the  actors  involved  in  the  debate and on contextual circumstances defining their involvement. As such, this research has profound implications for the scholarly understanding of issue competition and agenda-setting processes.

Full article available at: https://rdcu.be/NWRv

As 2017 did not feature any national election or referendum, Italian politicsmainly revolved around the strategies of the major players in advance of the March 2018 national elections. Among those were: a splinter in the governing Democratic Party (PD) and the ensuing formation of new left-wing electoral cartels; the consolidation of the Five Star Movement (M5S) as the main opposition party in the system; and the successful establishment of a right-wing coalition by the centre-right Forza Italia (FI), and the radical right parties Northern League (LN) and Brothers of Italy (FdI).While the issue of migration and asylum dominated national debates throughout most of the year, a major turning point was the approval of a new electoral law after the Italian Constitutional Court ruled several crucial elements of the pre-existing system unconstitutional.

While the January 2015 Paris terrorist attacks presented a crucial opportunity for far-right mobilisation, the focus on liberal democratic values and Charlie Hebdo’s non-conformist progressive profile presented challenges for right-wing discourse. Taking Italy as a paradigmatic case of public controversies on cultural and religious affairs, this article examines the opportunities and constraints generated by multicultural crises for far-right framing choices. A qualitative frame analysis analyses the discourse of three types of far-right actors. While the populist radical right, extreme right, and ultra-religious right groups disagree on crucial criteria for outgroup exclusion, they collectively employed the Charlie Hebdo controversy to redefine their exclusionary discourse on liberal grounds with the goal of gaining legitimacy in the mainstream public sphere.

While far right politics have long been considered exclusively a party phenomenon, the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ acted as a catalyst for far-right street protest, triggering a diffusion of extra-parliamentary initiatives against migrants and asylum-seekers throughout Western Europe. Based on new empirical data from face-to-face interviews with anti-immigration activists, and a quantitative content analysis of far-right mobilization over the last two decades, the paper pro-vides an empirical account of the rationale, nature and form of far-right mobiliza-tion on migration in Italy. Quantitatively, I use Political Claim Analysis to trace the major characteristics of far-right protest until 2015-2016. Qualitatively, I draw on 13 face-to-face interviews with activists engaged in different forms of anti-immigration protest, to explore the meaning that they attribute to their initiatives and political mobilization. The findings indicate that the emergence of the ‘refugee crisis’ changed anti-immigration protest in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Not only far-right activism has intensified in recent years, but it also simultaneous-ly shifted from institutional and conventional forms of action, to street protest. The far right successfully seized the opportunities made available by public deba-tes on the crisis, engaging in direct confrontational actions as well as grassroots activities aimed at raising awareness among the citizenry. In this respect, whilst the predominant themes in anti-refugee mobilization discourse was the threat of an ‘invasion’ by migrants, anti-refugee propaganda mixed several themes that are highly embedded in the Italian political context, such the corruption of the political system, and the disillusionment of ordinary citizens with the establishment and mainstream politics.

""This paper investigates the neo-Fascist movement CasaPound in Italy , focusing on how political violence is framed in its public discourses, and on the role it plays as a constitutive element of the group's collective identity. Starting from the conceptualization of violence in Italian Fascism, we focus on CasaPound's practices, discourse and ideology. This paper combines findings from 18 in-depth interviews with CasaPound members, participant observation at events and concerts, and quantitative content analyses of the archive of the movement and of media coverage of its activities (2004-2012). With the aim of filling the gap in academic research on the social movement activism of the far right, this paper disentangles CasaPound's official discourse on violence, which stands out as one where violent activities are only accepted as a tool of self-determination and defence. At the same time, we find out that a cult of violence similar to the one of traditional Fascism not only emerges from the semiotic repertoire mobilized by the movement, but is also reiterated by means of experiences of collective socialization based on violence.
"

Although the most researched extreme right actors take the form of political parties, social movements research has recently started analysing extreme right organizations that go beyond ordinary politics and that take the form of 'groupuscular’ organizations. However, most existing contributions rely on secondary data and focus mainly on public networks and online activism of extreme right actors and their strategies of action. Very few ethnographic studies of extreme right social movements exist with the result that we still need a deeper understanding of their off-line mobilization, ideological discourse and militancy and how these in turn interact with the choice of specific repertoires of action. In this framework, the aim of this paper is to present the findings of a research project that explored dynamics of militant participation and forms of activism promoted by a neo-fascist organization: CasaPound Italia. Combining ethnography, semi-structured interviews and content analysis, we analyse the communicative, organizational and ideological nature of CasaPound’s political engagement, and its heterogeneous, unconventional melange of political references, communication strategies and choices of protest action.

FAR RIGHT COMMUNICATION IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM: THE MEDIATISED POLITICS OF CASAPOUND ITALIA. Most discussions on far right politics ascribe much power to the media, suggesting that news coverage can facilitate the success of these actors by providing
legitimacy and visibility to their leaders and issues. In so doing, this scholarship reproduces the idea that far right actors are «hapless victims» of external circumstances, failing to see that they can at times be the shapers of their own fate, determining their own visibility and success with their media strategies. To address this issue, this article
looks at the interplay between internal supply-side factors and media coverage of CasaPound Italia (CPI), a non-established actor of the Italian far right. We use Political claims analysis (PCA) to analyse press releases and media reports of CPI’s activism. We conduct logistic regressions to look at whether issue characteristics (saliency and ownership), repertoires of action (conventional vs protest) and controversy (counter-mobilization) increase the likelihood that the activities of CasaPound Italia get coverage in the news. Our results indicate that media strategies by the far right increase the likelihood of news coverage, so that quality newspapers give attention to specific types of events promoted by CPI, such as when they mobilize on immigration, engage in street protest and create public controversy.

The year 2016 marked the end of Matteo Renzi’s government, whose agenda of policy and constitutional reforms faced increasing opposition both in parliament and his own party. Italian politics were characterised by two national referendums, elections in major local administrations, and the recognition of same-sex unions by the parliament. Political debate was dominated by disputes over the electoral and constitutional reform, the crisis of the Italian banking system, immigration and measures to support citizens affected by earthquakes.

The so-called ‘refugee crisis’ marks a crucial juncture in Italian politics. Tapping into the crisis of legitimacy of contemporary European politics, the controversy over migration has triggered discussion of socioeconomic, cultural and security issues. Pressured by public opinion, the EU and Italy have followed the logic of exceptionality, trying to put a halt to the inflow of asylumseekers rather than pursuing the logic of normalcy that must apply to migration at a global level. Institutional and mainstream actors have mirrored public anxieties and security concerns, endorsing emergency narratives, aggressive policing and militarised border control. Unable to engage with citizens’ concerns, they have helped to conflate migration with insecurity, creating a fertile
breeding ground for xenophobic, populist reactions. The paper suggests that the refugee crisis is best understood in relation to other ongoing crises in the EU, and that the way it is handled will  have significant consequences for future action, shaping the way European societies cope with forthcoming crises and transforming the relationship between states and citizens. Accordingly, it argues that the permanent state of emergency characterising governmental responses so far does not bode well for the future of liberal democracy in Europe.

This article explores how narratives create connections between the micro-context and the macro-context, focusing on the narratives produced by a neo-Nazi group within 'Blood and Honour' , a neo-Nazi gathering in Italy. The analysis presents a series of thematic narratives that describe how the neo-Nazi members see themselves in daily life, with their private and family sphere and how they aim to impact the political and cultural world. From these narratives, it is possible to understand how the neo-Nazi group sees society and justify the marginal role that they occupy in modern society. From this perspective, narratives operate as symbolic practice of identity creation in which members of the group negotiate new images of themselves and of their political and cultural movement. As we show, the neo-Nazi members aim to obtain legitimation and recognition in order to express a greater symbolic and social power.

Italy can arguably be considered a particularly ripe context for the emergence of vigilante practices. On the one hand, the legitimacy of state executive agencies has been eroded by years of political crises. On the other, perceived insecurity and ethnic competition have been on the rise as a result of public debates over the so-called European migration crisis. This chapter argues that these circumstances have built on pre-existing factors delimiting the opportunities for vigilante mobilization, especially in relation to the activities of extreme right actors. We focus on political and cultural factors, looking specifically at the discursive and legal framework regulating urban security in Italy, and at the heritage of Italian Fascism and Squadrismo. Empirically, the chapter presents the case of Forza Nuova, illustrating the main features of its vigilante activities in terms of organization, goals and targets, assessing the extent to which these were successful in spreading far-right values, and underlining the cultural and political factors that have limited its impact on the Italian public sphere.

This chapter offers a first, explorative analysis of vigilante practices in contemporary France. It offers an overview of the activities of street patrolling promoted in the wake of the so-called refugee crisis by two different types of actors: the citizen association Les Calaisiens en Colère and the political association Les Identitaires. The chapter highlights crucial organizational factors in their vigilante activism, focusing on the stated purposes and values of citizen activists. Empirically, it uses original data from three in-depth interviews with French activists, and with media reports on far right and anti-immigration mobilization. Additional material collected during fieldwork is used to contextualize the interview and media data. The findings show that attempts to take charge of the implementation of the law in France do not configure a blatant challenge to the authorities or the state monopoly of law and order. To the contrary, extreme right and anti-refugee movements present themselves as complementary law enforcement agencies, mobilizing strategically using the notion of “dissuasion”.

While far-right politics have long been considered exclusively a party phenomenon, in recent years various organisations have emerged throughout Western Europe that are engaged in street politics, extra-parliamentary activities, and hybrid forms of mobilisation. The refugee crisis acted as a catalyst for far-right street politics, which have developed into an integral part of the broader anti-immigration movement. The chapter provides an account of the rationale, nature, and form of mobilisation against refugees in Italy and France, two countries characterised by very different patterns of migration politics. We draw on 23 face-to-face interviews with key activists from different types of far-right organisations in the two countries, which allows exploring the meaning of far-right mobilisation in terms of targeted groups, repertoires of contention, and frame construction. Our findings indicate that the refugee crisis changed not only the size and scope of anti-immigration protest but also its nature. In both Italy and France, contemporary anti-refugee mobilisation involves far-right political parties, as well as social movements and grassroots organisations. What is more, these actors engage in a variety of actions, ranging from demonstrative and pacific street demonstrations to confrontational actions which often lead to violence. While we could detect a number of differences in the way in which French and Italian movements framed anti-refugee campaigns, the findings suggest that the refugee crisis has changed far-right mobilisation not only in quantitative but also in qualitative terms.

Since the rise of the Nazis in Weimar Germany conventional wisdom holds that economic hardship fosters far-right mobilization. Although there is no elaborate academic theory supporting this statement, the “economic-crisis-breeds-extremism” thesis remains popular among academics and commentators. FARPE assesses the political consequences of the Great Recession on far-right mobilization after the breakdown of Lehman Brothers in Autumn 2008. It provides systematic knowledge about the a) nature, b) evolution and c) characteristics of far-right protest in times of economic and social distress.

Since few studies worked on the interactions between political parties and social movements on the far-right, FARPE focusses on both covering European countries with different vote shares for the far right (Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and the UK). FARPE is driven by the hypothesis that economic and social turmoil have changed far-right mobilization quantitatively, by increasing the magnitude and size of protest in most EU countries, but also qualitatively by diversifying the type of groups and people involved in these. In providing answers to these questions FARPE aims at improving the understanding of whether the Great Recession is creating favorable opportunities for right-wing extremism, radicalism and populism. The project uses existing data to study the context of the Great Recession (political, economic, cultural systems), and it offers original data to qualify far-right mobilization. The research notably relies on Protest Event Analysis using national quality newspaper and party websites (WP1), as well as first-hand information gathered through semi-structured interviews with key far-right figures (WP2).

Traditionally, political scientists pointed out that the main challenges that parties had to face have been the declining “responsiveness” between the will of voters and what actually parties do once they are in power, and the convergence between the policy proposals of different parties within the same system. It is our opinion, however, that the development of the European financial crisis has led governing parties to face at least two additional challenges. The first one is related to the role of parties in democratic competition: the problem being what to compete for if the government leaders may be substituted by appointed technicians. The second challenge is related to the first, in that it involves the drastic limitation of the margin of maneuverability of governments, be that technical or elected ones. This is the consequence of a process that we call the cartelization of political agendas: the actual decision power of parties in government is more and more limited by the imposition of an unaccountable, supra-national agenda set by financial and allegedly non-political powers.This paper discuss the cartelization of political agenda in the Italian party system. We focus on the content of the electoral campaign for the first national elections under the crisis and after the technocratic experience.

This study analyses cross-national variance in ethnic exclusionism by focusing on political and institutional characteristics of European societies. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the national legislation on integration and the political climate as indicated by political actors’ positioning over immigration issues could explain differences in ethnic exclusionism. Employing a multilevel regression model and the cross-national comparable data of ESS, MIPEX and Comparative Manifesto Project, it tests the hypotheses for 17 European states in 2002-2003 (N= 30,529), as well as a number of complementary and alternative hypotheses derived from Ethnic Competition Theory and Political Culture Theory. Results confirm that, in addition to traditional macro and micro-level explanations, the restrictiveness of laws and policies on immigration has a positive effect on individuals’ endorsement of ethnic exclusionism, and that a country’s legislative setting and the elites’ framing of the imm...

What are the most successful issues and mobilization strategies used by extreme right social movements to attract the attention of the mass media? Social movements shape politics, but the extent to which protest events influence public agendas is still unclear. This very exploratory paper presents the first results from an ongoing study on the mobilization strategies and agenda-setting potential of social movement organizations of the extreme right in Italy and France. Looking at the newsworthiness of the issues they focus upon and the repertoires of action they employ to influence public debates and increase their own visibility in the mass media, we investigate the relationship between the ideal agenda that these actors promote on their online archives, and the news coverage of these groups’ activities on national quality newspapers. In so doing, we identify a number of conditions under which the protest agenda of the extreme right achieves media visibility, taking into account the opportunities provided by the outbreak of the economic crisis in Europe. By reconstructing the mobilization history of the two movements throughout Europe’s democratic and economic crisis, the paper sheds a light on the increasing attractiveness of groupuscular right-wing movements in the mass media. The descriptive results illustrate that the agenda power of far right movements is related to the type of issue over which these actors mobilize, the resonance of these issues in broader national debates, and the repertoires of protest actions employed. In this sense the results indicate that extreme right actors are well aware of the logics of news value and newsworthiness, suggesting that the outsized exposure of extreme right social movements in the mass media is not only related to the resonance of their issue priorities with media agendas, but also to the strategic construction of protest agendas to address specific issue fields and grievances.

Despite widespread public attention to the risks of growing right-wing extremism at the times of the economic crisis, very little is known about the dynamics of extreme right mobilization beyond electoral campaigns. We use protest event analysis from quality newspapers to map the repertoires of action and claims-making activities of the Italian extreme right over the last 20 years, and we investigate whether and how the economic crisis has changed the mobilization strategies of the different type of actors populating this area. To what extent did extreme right-wing activism change as a result of the crisis? Did the recession impact on the political priorities of parties and movements of this area? Have their repertoires of action and strategies of mobilization radicalized  since the beginning of the crisis? Our analysis of the Italian case indicates that extreme right  politics are more heterogeneous than traditionally assumed. The results show that, far from being exclusively interested in electoral politics and institutional channels of representation, extreme right organizations are frequently engaged in protest activities of expressive, disruptive and violent nature. Although the electoral appeal of the extreme right may remain unchanged, these actions influence the recognisability of the different groups and contribute to structuring their collective identity. Moreover, we illustrate that mobilization strategies depend on the type of extremist organization considered, as lowly institutionalized groups are characterized by a broad and changing repertoire of action ranging from electoral campaigning to radical protests, whereas more established partisan organizations fully endorse conventional forms of political participation.