From the Streets to the Voting Booth: The Electoral Effect of Grassroots Mobilization Against the Far-Right

Abstract

Far-right scholars have focused extensively on the causes and consequences of far-right success, while not much attention has been directed towards what citizens and the civil society can do to tackle this phenomenon. Focusing on the surge of an anti-far-right social movement -the Sardine- during the 2020 Italian regional elections, we test whether grassroots mobilization is an effective tool to curb far-right parties’ electoral performance. Employing municipality-level data on electoral results, Sardine rallies and far-right events, we exploit a difference-in-differences design to identify the effect of local exposure to Sardine mobilization on the municipal electoral performance of far-right parties. The results suggest that local exposure to a Sardine event has a strong negative effect on far-right electoral results.

Keywords: Far-right parties, Social movements, Voting behaviour, Causal inference, Electoral campaign