The strength of attachment: regionalism, nationalism and vote choice

Radical right parties have grown in popularity recently, leaning heavily on state-level nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment and the promise of a homogenous nation state. There has also recently been increased devolution of power to subnational communities, who historically have resisted homogenisation and infringements on their autonomy. This implies a tension between the interests of subnational units and those of radical right parties. Using data from the 2016 and 2018 European Social Surveys and a new measure of regional identity strength constructed from the Regionalist Parties Dataset (Massetti and Schakel 2016) for 10 European countries, this study shows that people living in regions with strong legacies of regionalism are less attached to their national state. Second, the article demonstrates regional identity strength is negatively associated with voting for radical right parties due to their opposition to radical right parties' exclusive state-level nationalism. Lastly, this relationship can eclipse the effect of immigration attitudes on vote choice as radical right parties' rhetoric around immigration generally focuses on the importance of cultural homogeneity. Evidence supporting these hypotheses is found using both cross-national data and case evidence from Italy. This study underscores the importance of examining the role older social cleavages play in structuring party politics in the transnational era.