Historical anti-fascism and right-wing voting in Italy

Laura Panza, Marco Lecci, Eik Swee and Giulio Zanella

No 17524, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We study how the experience of anti-fascism during Mussolini's dictatorship affects post-war political preferences for right-wing parties. Using newly-digitized historical data, we construct a measure of anti-fascism from the universe of regime opponents recorded in the Casellario Politico Centrale, and an instrumental variable that leverages the random assignment of judges of the Tribunale speciale per la difesa dello Stato and that resolves the simultaneity between the supply of opposition and the demand for repression of opponents. We find that stronger opposition to fascism before and during WWII weakens the support for the post-fascist party in democratic elections by between 0.3 and 1.2 percentage points. Weaker effects are detected for post-1992 conservative right-wing parties not directly tied to the Partito Nazionale Fascista.

Keywords: Anti-fascism; Right-wing parties; Political preferences; Voting behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 N44 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-08
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