The Rise of the Right in Southern Europe
Right-wing parties have surged to power in Italy and Greece. Spaniards vote tomorrow, it may be for a right-wing government. What explains this trend? Economic stagnation has exacerbated frustrations, especially around masculinity. Men can no longer provide for their families single-handedly. Right-wing leaders have gained popularity by celebrating motherhood, vilifying feminists and scape-goating migrants.
Economic stagnation
In Italy, Spain and Greece, real wages have fallen. GDP per capita has fallen. Over 20% of youths are now unemployed. Over a third of Spanish young people are on temporary jobs. Daunted by precarity, Southern European young men still live with their parents.
The Demise of the Male Breadwinner
Spanish, Italian and Greek men are struggling to provide for their families.
Female employment has risen. Amid precarity, it is increasingly seen as economically necessary.
Southern Europeans want two kids, but many are economically nervous
Most Southern Europeans want more than two children. Fertility preferences have not changed over the generations. But precarity makes childbearing incredibly risky. Sardinian graduates told me that in a tough economy they are reluctant to have kids. Fertility has thus fallen.
Over in the USA, where the economy is booming, fertility is half a kid higher.
Patriarchal Nostalgia
The male breadwinner continues to be idealised. Over 20% of Greeks and Italians would still prefer that the husband provides and the wife stays at home. Spanish men whose wives are breadwinners are almost as unhappy as if they were both unemployed.
46% of Greeks and 40% of Italians think that men should have greater rights to employment.
People on lower incomes are especially likely to say that men should be prioritised.
Cultural tightness
When people feel uncertain and under attack, they often favour social policing, cultural tightness, group conformity and authoritarianism.
The Rise of Right-Wing Parties
Greece’s centre-right party won a landslide victory, with 41% of the vote. Far-right parties won over 13% of the vote. Brothers of Italy likewise won an absolute majority. Tomorrow, Spaniards go to the polls - possibly electing a right-wing government.
Right wing leaders are anti-feminist
Right-wing leaders have championed patriarchal nostalgia. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has marketed herself as ‘Mother, Italian, Christian’.
Anti-feminism is cardinal to Vox. Sexual assaults are dismissed as fabrications, hurting innocent men.
Hostile sexism is the single most important predictor of support for Vox. Moreover, Spaniards who have recently become more anti-feminist are more likely to support support Vox.
Abortion is strongly opposed by both Vox and Brothers of Italy. Vox’s election manifesto insists that life begins at conception.
Economic stagnation, patriarchal nostalgia and the rise of the right
I suggest these three facts are all connected. Daunted by precarity, feeling like they’re falling behind, no longer able to buy a home, provide for their families, or even have children, Southern European men are incredibly frustrated.
Cultural ideals persist, but thanks to economic stagnation they are now denied. Many yearn for a time when men were breadwinners. I call this ‘patriarchal nostalgia’.
Right-wing leaders have fabricated myths and benefitted from social media filter bubbles, but all that is partly endogenous to demand. Southern European economies do not enable young men to gain status, and so many are turning Right.
Alice, I’m a big fan of your writing (and mind). I don’t know if you take requests, but I’m very curious if any research has been done about attitudes toward women and performance in women’s cycling. Except for a handful of Italians, the Northern Europeans and Brits (and Americans) seem to dominate. And we haven’t seen the same rise of Latin American women’s cyclists like in the men’s tour. (This year’s Tour de France Femmes — only the second in 55 years — just wrapped up and was very exciting!)
I don't disagree with the piece, and don't know much about domestic Italian politics, but...a female prime minister seems like an unlikely vehicle for patriarchal nostalgia, no? Religious nationalism, sure, and from what little I know of Meloni that appears to describe her. But isn't she the antithesis of patriarchy? She doesn't come from a political family, unlike Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Park Geun-Hye, or any other Asian women who became leaders in patriarchal societies because of the appearance of an inherited right.