ABSTRACT
The Lega is one of the most studied Italian political movements and has been the subject of a variety of definitions and theoretical approaches. The first section of this chapter performs a review of a cross-section of the literature on this party, the scope of which is two-fold. First, it establishes the extent to which historical precedents to leghismo have been accounted for in existing scholarly work. Second, it examines the tension between approaches to the Lega which have focused on either its regionalist, nationalist, far right, or populist element without necessarily exploring the centre of gravity between these ideologies and discourses. The second section then provides an overview of the key concepts required to navigate the following chapters of the book. The key paradigm to emerge from this chapter is that of populist regionalism/nationalism, which, with its components of regionalism/nationalism, nativism, and populism, will form the conceptual framework for the comparison between the different waves of populist regionalist (and later populist nationalist) activism in this book.
