ABSTRACT
Just as the Movements for Regional Autonomy (MRAs) and Bossi's Lega exploited moments of crisis and transition for the Italian nation-state, the third wave of activism under Salvini also depended on converging crises of the Eurozone, the so-called refugee crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The Lega has once again played a key role in the transition of the Italian state towards a new stage in the Italian Republic. This chapter examines both change and continuity in Salvini's Lega both with regards to the previous two waves of populist regionalism. On the one hand, this chapter views Salvini's leadership of the Lega as a logical progression from the previous two waves of activism represented by the MRAs and Bossi's Lega Nord, insofar as the party's principal discursive features have continued to be populism and nativism. On the other hand, however, contextual differences and an ideological shift from regionalism to nationalism mark important discontinuities in what is a third wave of post-war populist activism in (north) Italy.
