Abstract

Academics are often accused of being secluded in their “ivory towers”, focused on research and teaching but uninterested in, or unable to engage with, the public debate. If this is actually the case, under what conditions and at what particular moment is this likely to change? Following on three relevant dimensions—the visibility of political scientists, their partisanship and their impact in the public sphere—and combining press analysis with original survey data, this article has two main aims: first, to assess Italian political scientists’ (IPSs) social relevance in a period of huge political and institutional conflict such as the constitutional referendum held in December 2016; second, to explore the potential factors leading IPSs to be more or less present in the public debate. For the former, we focus on the public visibility of IPSs during the referendum campaign, as well as on the content of their public interventions, both concerning their neutral/partisan stance and their attitudes towards the constitutional reform. For the latter, we empirically test a few personal and institutional factors that are likely to influence individuals’ participation in the referendum debate.

Highlights

  • Is a democratic polity where political science and the empirical social sciences in general are expected to have some impact on the public sphere, notwithstanding their difficult academic consolidation (Morlino 1992)

  • We explore to what extent new attitudes towards partisanship, visibility and impact on public sphere emerged during such a critical juncture

  • We control these new attitudes by personal and academic characteristics and by various kinds of relations with the media. This way, we aim to identify the roles played by Italian political scientists (IPSs)—observers, partisans, brokers, etc.—and assess the overall strength of their voices in terms of their impact on the public sphere

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Summary

Introduction

Is a democratic polity where political science and the empirical social sciences in general are expected to have some impact on the public sphere, notwithstanding their difficult academic consolidation (Morlino 1992). The subject of institutional reforms is a typical testing area for the effectiveness of IPSs’ public engagement and social relevance, in a country that has always been depicted as a “difficult democracy”, and where the issue of modernising the system of government has been a central theme for at least 40 years (Cotta and Verzichelli 2007) For this reason, the constitutional referendum held on 4 December 2016 represents a unique occasion to test the role of public intellectuals and academic experts in driving the public debate about the future of the Italian institutional setting. A period of such considerable political and institutional conflict may have opened up an opportunity for political scientists to “descend from their ivory tower” and engage in discussions with other social actors In this regard, the article aims to provide an explorative contribution based on the theoretical framework presented in this special issue (Real-Dato and Verzichelli 2021). The final section systematises the empirical findings and presents a few concluding remarks on the visibility, partisanship and impact of IPSs during the referendum debate

Research questions and methods
Political scientists have a professional obligation to engage in public debate
Results from the analysis of major newspapers
La Stampa la Repubblica Corriere della Sera
Results of the referendum survey
Only once
Potential answers Prefer not to disclosure
Motivation Political Science social relevance Media activism Diagnostics
Discussion of the findings and concluding remarks
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