Interesting reading, although I wonder if there are alternative or complementary explanations—instead of direct cultural transmission, one could think of different economic paths due to different starting levels of industrialization, infrastructure, education etc., which then generate different cultural clusters. Culture will also influence the economy, of course, in a sort of co-evolution.
Btw, if you wanted to apply this to Italy (another Italian here!), I think you should not look at coalitions but single parties within them. The Austro-Hungarian regions corresponds pretty well to the Lega Nord heartlands, for example.
But this also allows me to give an example of the alternative explanation. The historic Lega Nord vote corresponds even better with the areas where the economy is dominated by small but dynamic family-run manufacturing (north Italy, and east of Milan). You can think of Lega, pre-2010, as representing conservative voters coming from this economic and cultural background. The reasons why that part of the country ended up with this specific economic model have, as far as I know, little to do with culture and more with the timing and conditions of industrialization. Which in turn, at least in part depended on the infrastructure, institutions and levels of human capital left over from the pre-italy period.
Edit: On a second thought, you could invoke cultural history and inertia to explain the differences between eastern Lombardy and Veneto on one side, and Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany on the other. Both areas followed similar economic paths as far as I know, but they belonged to different states pre-unification and they are culturally different in a way that is very clear in the polls.
Thank you for your reply! The differences in economic developement are undoubtedly a part of the story; it is hard to isolate the “material culture” from the rest of the culture. I never said it has to be direct cultural transmission (expecially in the case of Poland, which was resettled by colonists from all the other areas of Poland. Barely one sixth of the population of Western Poland in 1950 was made of Germans who inhabited in the same place in 1939; is it enough to have direct cultural transmission? Maybe, but the quick resettlement itself may have been a cause of cultural divergence).
The economy and the environment shape the culture, but sometimes also the opposite is true (you can tell which is the border between Dominican Republic and Haiti simply by looking at Google Earth). Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy/Veneto are two sides of the same Po Valley, and as far as I know have similar densities of small manifactures: so yes, maybe the former border is a part of the explaination for the fact that they have ended up opposing each other politically.
Interesting reading, although I wonder if there are alternative or complementary explanations—instead of direct cultural transmission, one could think of different economic paths due to different starting levels of industrialization, infrastructure, education etc., which then generate different cultural clusters. Culture will also influence the economy, of course, in a sort of co-evolution.
Btw, if you wanted to apply this to Italy (another Italian here!), I think you should not look at coalitions but single parties within them. The Austro-Hungarian regions corresponds pretty well to the Lega Nord heartlands, for example.
But this also allows me to give an example of the alternative explanation. The historic Lega Nord vote corresponds even better with the areas where the economy is dominated by small but dynamic family-run manufacturing (north Italy, and east of Milan). You can think of Lega, pre-2010, as representing conservative voters coming from this economic and cultural background. The reasons why that part of the country ended up with this specific economic model have, as far as I know, little to do with culture and more with the timing and conditions of industrialization. Which in turn, at least in part depended on the infrastructure, institutions and levels of human capital left over from the pre-italy period.
Edit: On a second thought, you could invoke cultural history and inertia to explain the differences between eastern Lombardy and Veneto on one side, and Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany on the other. Both areas followed similar economic paths as far as I know, but they belonged to different states pre-unification and they are culturally different in a way that is very clear in the polls.
Thank you for your reply! The differences in economic developement are undoubtedly a part of the story; it is hard to isolate the “material culture” from the rest of the culture. I never said it has to be direct cultural transmission (expecially in the case of Poland, which was resettled by colonists from all the other areas of Poland. Barely one sixth of the population of Western Poland in 1950 was made of Germans who inhabited in the same place in 1939; is it enough to have direct cultural transmission? Maybe, but the quick resettlement itself may have been a cause of cultural divergence).
The economy and the environment shape the culture, but sometimes also the opposite is true (you can tell which is the border between Dominican Republic and Haiti simply by looking at Google Earth). Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy/Veneto are two sides of the same Po Valley, and as far as I know have similar densities of small manifactures: so yes, maybe the former border is a part of the explaination for the fact that they have ended up opposing each other politically.