Geographies of discontent: public service deprivation and the rise of the Far Right in Italy

Electoral support for far-right parties is often linked to geographies of discontent. We argue that public service deprivation, defined as reduced access to public services at the local level, plays an important role in explaining these patterns. By exploiting an Italian reform that reduced access to local public services in municipalities with fewer than 5,000 residents we demonstrate that far-right support in national elections increased more after the reform in affected municipalities than in unaffected ones. We use geo-coded individual-level survey data and party rhetoric data to explore the mechanisms underlying this result. Our findings suggest that exposure to the reform increased concerns about immigration, and that far-right parties increasingly linked public services to immigration in their rhetoric after the reform. These demand and supply dynamics help us understand how public service deprivation shapes geographic patterns in far-right support.