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From Opposition Leader to Prime Minister: Giorgia Meloni and Women’s Issues in the Italian Radical Right

Author

Listed:
  • Elisabetta De Giorgi

    (Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy)

  • Alice Cavalieri

    (Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy / Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Italy)

  • Francesca Feo

    (Faculty of Political and Social Science, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy)

Abstract

Under the motto “God, homeland, and family”—but also by stressing one further important marker of social identity, i.e., gender—Italian radical right party leader Giorgia Meloni multiplied her party seats in parliament from 2013 onwards. After the 2022 elections, she became the first woman prime minister in Italy. Starting from an overview of the figure of Giorgia Meloni as a radical right woman leader, we explore her and her party’s position on women-related issues and their relevance while exploring, in opposition, two different contexts: representative institutions and social media. To do that, we draw on parliamentary data—bills and parliamentary questions introduced in parliament by Fratelli d’ Italia —and on Meloni’s public discourse—examined in an analysis of all the tweets posted by her official Twitter account, between 2013 and 2021. As expected, a low saliency of women’s issues appears in all the types of data examined, although some of them are more exposed to the shift in attention caused by the rise of related trend topics. Both Meloni and her party are strong supporters of the “natural family” and make use of women’s issues in claiming femonationalist arguments, especially on social media. However, Meloni and her party cannot be considered as fully “neo-traditional,” as are other similar parties in Europe, but rather as a combination of “neo-traditional” and “modern-traditional.”

Suggested Citation

  • Elisabetta De Giorgi & Alice Cavalieri & Francesca Feo, 2023. "From Opposition Leader to Prime Minister: Giorgia Meloni and Women’s Issues in the Italian Radical Right," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 108-118.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v11:y:2023:i:1:p:108-118
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6042
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonardo Puleo & Gianluca Piccolino, 2022. "Back to the Post-Fascist Past or Landing in the Populist Radical Right? The Brothers of Italy Between Continuity and Change," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 359-383, July.
    2. Castanho Silva, Bruno & Proksch, Sven-Oliver, 2022. "Politicians unleashed? Political communication on Twitter and in parliament in Western Europe," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 776-792, October.
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