Between regional and neighbourhood structures: contextual effects behind populist radical right support in Italy

We examine support for the populist radical right in Italy using municipal-level data and apply spatial statistical methods to examine local, neighbourhood, and regional contextual effects, spatial dependence, and the halo effect of immigration. Our findings confirm a consistently negative association between higher education and radical right support, while revealing more nuanced, regionally contingent relationships with other social, economic, and demographic factors. Notably, the effect of unemployment varies considerably across Italy’s North, Centre, and South macro-regions, while regional spillovers of non-EU migration explain voting patterns for both parties more effectively than localized hotspots of high immigration.