Place-Based Policies and Political Discontent: The Mediating Role of Local Spending Programmes

This paper introduces the special issue «Recent developments in the geography of discontent». The contributions cover topics of increasing interest to the regional science community in recent years: the analysis of the main determinant behind the geographically heterogeneous rise of political discontent, the role played by regional institutions and bottom-up place-based policies in contrasting the expansion of right-wing populist parties, and the advantages of applying sophisticated statistical learning tools for studying the geography of discontent. The studies suggest relevant policy implications ranging from improving the quality of local institutions to addressing local economic and educational fragilities.