A United Front for Decentralization? A Comparative Analysis of Friulian Parties’ Manifestos

We live in a time in which institutional authority is moving away from central states and towards subnational and supranational governments. Especially within the European Union, the power of regions has been consistently growing, as shown by the devolution of powers in Belgium, Spain, and, more recently, in France and Italy. Nevertheless, there is significant variation among the subnational governments' relationship to their central states. Studies show that the variation among regional governments is extremely consequential in terms of who gets resources, who gets represented, and what dictates the power relationship between levels of government. The literature has shown that political parties have a great degree of responsibility in influencing the salience of institutional and territorial issues on the political theater and determining the timing and substance of changes that have engendered the movement of authority between institutions. This paper seeks to understand how regional political parties frame decentralization and autonomy by analyzing the case study of the northeastern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. This case serves as a rich and under-analyzed case study due to its particular history of belonging, or lack thereof, to the Italian nation-state. This comparative study analyses the manifestos of the local parties that ran in the 2018 Regional Elections. The content analysis shows that the parties share the goal of devolution of powers from the provincial to the municipal level. However, political differences influenced by the right-left cleavage seem to prevent a unified Friulian movement for decentralization and autonomy.