Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

The thesis Party Change of the Northern League in Italy, deals with the transformation of the Italian Northern League (LN) from regional to national political party. The study aims to be a contribution to a larger scholarly discussion about changes of the Italian political system. Under the criteria that define a regional political party this thesis evaluate whether the contemporary LN truly transformed from regional to national party. The study than connects with the previous findings and follows with analysis of the five factors - the most recent party performance, political system change, institutionalization, leadership change and socio-economic changes in the country which could have affected party's agenda. Different variables are derived from the Kenneth Janda's theory of change in political parties. The research uses the data from the 2013 national parliamentary elections, when LN lost large part of its electorate, and the 2015 regional elections in order to evaluate which of the above mentioned factors influenced the process of transformation of the LN.