Losers of globalization? Politics in the Prosecco Hills region in Italy as a case of radical right-wing populism in a (wealthy) rural area

Electoral success of radical right-wing populist parties (RRPPs) is often associated with the ‘losers of globalization’. Such broad and stylized accounts may, at least apparently and/or partially, enter in collision with empirical reality, though. This research focuses on the mechanisms of (re)production of the political consensus for RRPPs in an emblematic rural area of North-eastern Italy: the “Prosecco Hills”. It is a wealthy area, where export-oriented intensive agriculture and tourism are both well-established and on the rise, in a province where the unemployment rate is 50% lower than the national average: quite far from the usual depiction of those places left behind by globalization processes. Our research aims at offering some accounts for the long-lasting and even increasing popular support for RRPPs in this area, marked by strongly majoritarian pro-autonomist stances amongst the population. The paper relies on the collection and the analysis of individual-level survey data from an on-line questionnaire submitted through local Facebook groups, as well as on semi-structured interviews with available survey respondents. Our findings point at the centrality of producerism as a cultural-identitarian glue easing the process of political articulation of localist, pro-autonomist positions by RRPPs. We also contend that both the continuity with the Christian Democracy era and the recent electoral rise by Fratelli d’Italia at the expense of the League help also understand that localism and producerism are not inherently radical-right elements, while they are much resistant to party cues. Localism and producerism are logics of understanding politics, rooted in the structure of social relations that characterize a certain territory, that, in certain conditions, provide RRPPs with a substantial electoral advantage. However, our findings also find some evidences of existing frictions between (majoritarian) producerist attitudes and the mounting sensibility for environmental issues, which may suggest some tensions between localist and producerist logics in the near future.