Historical Anti-Fascism and Right-Wing Voting in Italy

Abstract

We study how anti-fascism during Mussolini's dictatorship in Italy affects support for right-wing parties at 1948-2022 democratic elections. Using newly-digitized historical data, we construct a measure of anti-fascism from the universe of recorded regime opponents, and we resolve simultaneity between supply of opposition and demand for repression by leveraging the random assignment of regime's Tribunale speciale judges. We find that stronger opposition worth one additional standard deviation (5.7 opponents per 10,000 adults) in a province weakens the support for the post-fascist party and for conservative right-wing parties not directly tied to the Partito Nazionale Fascista by up to 48%, with weaker effects during more recent decades. No effects are detected for the right-wing party that embraces a populist platform.

Keywords: anti-fascism, right-wing parties, political preferences, voting behavior