Ideological Flexibility of Political Parties in the Era of Transnational Cleavage

Alessio Scopelliti is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.

“Alessio Scopelliti’s book makes an excellent contribution to the study of political institutions and Euroscepticism. It does this by engaging with two scholarly debates in the literature: the ideological flexibility of political parties; and the multidimensional nature of the new transnational cleavage. The work is theoretically rich, building on rigorous and convincing research design, analytical framework and methodological approach, challenging the view that parties are fixed in their political ideologies. The theory is clearly situated and explained in the context of the traditional literature on political cleavages. The book is also empirically strong in those chapters where he tests out his theoretical argument on two comparative cases of established Radical Right Parties in Europe, the Lega (in Italy) and the Rassemblement National (in France). This book will be of interest to scholars and students interested in European integration, political parties, and the Radical Right in Europe.”Michelle Cini, University of Bristol, UK“Based on an in-depth comparison of Lega and Rassemblement National, Scopelliti’s study provides new and timely insights into the ideological flexibility of established radical right parties. This book advances our knowledge of the ideologies and strategies of this party family. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the political trajectories of the radical right.”Sofia Vasilopoulou, King’s College London, UK

• 1. Introduction 2. Classical political cleavages and new evolving ideological conflicts 3. A theory of political parties’ ideological flexibility 4. Flighty Euroscepticism: Lega 5. Stoic Euroscepticism: Rassemblement National 6. Conclusions