Linking Mobilization Frames and Political Opportunities: Insights from Regional Populism in Italy

Drawing on the case of the Northern League in Italy, I provide a framework for systematically relating insights from two major currents of recent research on collective action: framing processes and political opportunity structures. Cross-classifying two variables-the stability of political alignments and the opportunities for autonomous action within the polity-yields four types of political structures; each is particularly conducive to different master frames (antisystem, inclusion, revitalization, and realignment). This approach also improves specification of the role of organizational resources. These resources become substantially more effective if the strategies they are supposed to support are framed in a way consistent with the masterframe and the opportunity structure. T he regionalist parties that form the Northern League' have played a major role in recent Italian politics. Their impressive electoral growth between 1990 and 1993 has undermined support for traditional parties, including oppositional parties, and has paved the way for the advent of Mr. Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia. In this paper I do not discuss the events that have followed