Italian Parliamentary Election Research Articles

Comparison of turnout in Italian parliamentary elections: a two-stage affinity propagation approach

ABSTRACT This paper presents a methodology for temporal contextual analysis of electoral outcomes in the presence of redistricting. Affinity propagation is used to aggregate electoral districts, thus deriving spatial units comparable over electoral waves. The methodology is based on travel-to-work flows and socio-economic aggregated data. Comparability of clusters enables analyses of electoral trends. A map of electoral turnout variation in Italian parliamentary elections held in 2018 and 2022 illustrates the proposed approach.

Right-wing victory in the 2022 Italian parliamentary election: territorial patterns and systemic implications

The snap election held in September 2022 saw the victory of the right-wing coalition, with a remarkable performance of the populist radical right party Fratelli d’Italia and its leader, Giorgia Meloni, who has become the first female Prime Minister of the country. Another unprecedented element concerns participation, which was the lowest in post-war Italy for a national election. Throughout this article, we first shed light on the background of this election, by highlighting how the specificities of the electoral system and previous developments during the last legislature affected the strategic coordination of political parties. We then proceed to the illustration of the results, with a territorial analysis of participation figures, vote share and competitiveness of electoral constituencies. Finally, we assess the implications of this election for the institutionalization of the party system. What emerges is a picture of growing abstention, disproportionality, fragmentation and electoral volatility, which suggests an overall consolidation of instability.

The general election of 2022: the return of bipolarity?

ABSTRACT The 2022 Italian parliamentary elections were largely pictured, especially by the foreign press, as an alarming victory for the extreme right. In this article, we argue that though the 26% obtained by Brothers of Italy was surely an outstanding result, it does not automatically imply that the Italian electorate shifted further to the right in terms of its preferences and ideology. The evidence we present seems rather to suggest that this result is the consequence of Brothers of Italy’s electoral partners, the Lega and Forza Italia, losing their appeal among the centre right’s voters. This, along with an electoral law that favours bipolarity, and division among the remaining coalitions, led to an outstanding victory for the centre right (right-centre?).

Race for attention: Twitter campaign of Italian party leaders before the 2018 parliamentary elections

The 2018 Italian Parliamentary elections marked the success of populist parties. With the consolidation of hybrid media campaigning Twitter became a growingly important communication channel for party leaders. When analysing the Twitter communication from 1 February 2018 to 4 March 2018 (day of the elections) Matteo Salvini and Matteo Renzi dominated the campaign in the Twittersphere. Other party leaders didn’t used Twitter as skilfully as these two politicians, their engagement indicators are less lower than that of Salvini and Renzi. The internal communicational dynamic between the party leaders shows that their main target was Matteo Renzi. Even though he had the most followers within this period, overall his communication indicators were good, his party suffered a historical loss at the elections.

The 2022 general Italian elections. The long-awaited victory of the right

ABSTRACT The 2022 Italian parliamentary elections had an announced winner: the centre-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni’s party (Fratelli d’Italia [F.d.I.]). Despite the low level of competitiveness, caused mainly by divisions in the centre-left camp, and the high predictability of the election outcome, the elections have had profound consequences for the Italian party system and also for decision-making within the European Union. In addition to providing a detailed analysis of the electoral results of the 2022 elections, the article will focus on the process that led, in a short period of time, to the formation of the new government led, for the first time in Italy”s history, by a woman and, above all, composed predominantly of far-right parties with a populist or sovereigntist attitude. Finally, in the concluding section the article will reflect on the ‘historical’ significance of these elections for the Italian political system, highlighting possible elements of tension for the democratic regime and for the relationship with other E.U. member-states.

The Italian parliamentary election of 2022: the populist radical right takes charge

The Italian parliamentary election of 2022 was called following Mario Draghi’s resignation in June. The campaign took place – for the first time in Italian history – over the summer. Yet, its crucial moments occurred in the very first days, when parties had to present the respective coalition strategies. In a matter of weeks, Italy’s political system moved from the embryonic tripolarism inaugurated in 2013 to a full-fledged quadripolarism. The election saw less than two thirds of the eligible voting population participate – a new all-time low for Italian general elections. The result awarded a clear victory to the center-right coalition, due to its successes in most FPTP constituencies. Given the clear indications which emerged from the election results, the process of government formation took less than a month overall. This election can be considered historical in at least two ways. The first is the formation of a government led for the first time by a female politician, Giorgia Meloni. The second is the political composition of her government, with two populist radical right parties in control of about 80 percent of the votes cast in favour of the governing coalition.

Hacking the Attention Economy: the Use of the Twittersphere of Italian Party Leaders Before the 2018 Elections

The 2018 Italian Parliamentary elections were marked by the success of populist parties. With the consolidation of hybrid media, campaigning on Twitter became an increasingly important communication channel for party leaders. An analysis of Twitter communications from 1 February 2018 to 4 March 2018 (day of the elections) reveals that Matteo Salvini and Matteo Renzi dominated the election campaign in the Twittersphere. Other party leaders did not use Twitter as skilfully as these two politicians and their engagement indicators are lower than those of Salvini and Renzi. The internal communicational dynamic between the party leaders shows that their main target was Matteo Renzi. Even though he had the most followers within this period and, overall, his communication indicators were good, in the end his party suffered a historical loss at the elections.

موقف الولایات المتحدة الأمریکیة من الانتخابات البرلمانیة الإیطالیة أبریل 1948

يتناول هذا البحث موقف الولايات المتحدة فى مواجهة المد الشيوعى فى سنوات ما بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية فى إيطاليا، فقد بدأت الأحزاب اليسارية تتزايد قوتها فى إيطاليا، وتهدد بالسيطرة على الحکم. ولذلک حددت الولايات المتحدة أهدافها بأن لا تسمح بسقوط إيطاليا تحت السيطرة الشيوعية، لأن هذا يهدد المصالح الأمريکية فى أوربا والمنطقة بصورة عامة. وبدأت الولايات المتحدة تضع محاور سياستها فى إيطاليا لمنع أحزاب الجبهة الشعبية (الحزب الشيوعى الإيطالى والحزب الاشتراکى الإيطالى) من السيطرة على البرلمان فى انتخابات أبريل 1948، ومن ثم السيطرة على الحکومة. ولهذا بدأت الولايات المتحدة فى تقديم الدعم لحکومة الحزب المسيحى الديمقراطى برئاسة دى جاسبرى De Gasperi والأحزاب السياسية المناهضة للشيوعية، وتمثل هذا الدعم فى المساعدات العسکرية للقوات المسلحة الإيطالية حتى تصبح قادرة على التصدي لأى محاولة شيوعية للسيطرة على الحکم بالقوة. وکذلک کانت أهم مجالات الدعم للحکومة الإيطالية هى المساعدات الاقتصادية خاصة فى ظل ما کانت تعانيه إيطاليا خلال تلک الفترة من مصاعب اقتصادية، فقدمت الولايات المتحدة القروض والمساعدات الغذائية والتسهيلات للحکومة الإيطالية، خاصة خلال فترة الانتخابات. وفى نفس الوقت کان مجلس الأمن القومى الأمريکى يعد الخطط لمواجهة أى محاولة شيوعية لليسطرة على الحکم فى إيطاليا، قبل الانتخابات أو بعدها. بل وضع الخطط فى حالة مشارکة الحزب الشيوعيى فى الحکومة الإيطالية، أو الهيمنة الشيوعية على الحکومة بالوسائل القانونية. فى نفس الفترة عملت الولايات المتحدة على ضمان مساندة فرنسا والمملکة المتحدة لسياستها فى إيطاليا، ودعمهم للحکومة الإيطالية. وشنت الولايات المتحدة حملة دعائية مناهضة للشيوعية، من خلال تشجيع الکنيسة الکاثوليکية على مهاجمة أحزاب الجبهة الشعبية خلال الانتخابات. بل شجعت حملة رسائل من أمريکا التى کان يتم من خلالها إرسال الرسائل من الأمريکيين من أصول إيطالية لأقاربهم وأصدقائهم فى إيطاليا لحثهم على التصويت للأحزاب المناهضة للشيوعية. وحاول الحزب الشيوعى ومن ورائه الاتحاد السوفيتى مواجهة التحرکات الأمريکية، ولکن نتائج الانتخابات جاءت فى صالح الأحزاب المناهضة للشيوعية، مما شکل نجاح لسياسة التدخل الأمريکى لمنع المد الشيوعى فى غرب أوربا. U.S. Position on the Italian Parliamentary Elections of April 1948 Ahmed Abd El Sayed Ibrahim El Alfy Department of Social Sciences – Faculty of Education – Damanhour University – Egypt. Email: D_a_abdelsyed@edu.dmu.edu.eg Abstract: The present research investigates the U.S. position in confronting the communist extension in the post-World War II years in Italy, as leftist parties have begun to grow stronger in Italy, threatening to take over complete control of the government. The United States, therefore, set its goals not to allow Italy to fall under communist control, because this threatens American interests in Europe and the region in general. The United States started to set the axes of its policy in Italy to prevent the parties of the Popular Front (Italian Communist Party and Italian Socialist Party) from controlling the parliament in April 1948 elections, and then controlling the government. This is why the United States began to provide support to the Christian Democratic Party government, headed by De Gasperi and the main anti-communist parties. This support was represented in the military aid of the Italian armed forces in order for resisting any communist attempt to control the government by force. Similarly, the most important areas of support for the Italian government were economic assistance, especially in the light of the economic difficulties that Italy was suffering during that period. Hence, the United States provided loans, food aid and facilities to the Italian government, particularly during the election period. At the same time, the US National Security Council was preparing plans to face any communist attempt to control the rule in Italy, before elections or after elections. Additionally, plans are made in case the Communist Party participates in the Italian government or communist domination over the government by legal means. In the same period, the US ensured that France and the United Kingdom supported its policy in Italy, and supported the Italian government. The United States launched an anti-communist propaganda campaign, by urging the Catholic Church to attack the Popular Front parties during the elections. It also encouraged a campaign of “Messages from America,” through which messages from Italian-Americans were sent to their relatives and friends in Italy to urge them to vote for the anti-communist parties. The Communist Party and the Soviet Union tried to counter the American moves, but the election results came in favor of anti-communist parties, which represented a success for the US policy of intervention to prevent the communist extension in Western Europe.

Roundtable on Visuality, Race and Nationhood in Italy

This Roundtable on Visuality, Race and Nationhood in Italy brings together scholars from the arts, humanities and social sciences to discuss historical constructions of Italian whiteness and national identity in relation to the current xenophobic discourse on race and migration, stressing their rootedness in as yet unchallenged modern notions of scientific racism. Building on postcolonial historian and anthropologist Ann Laura Stoler’s definition of the colonial archive as a ‘site of knowledge production’ and a ‘repository of codified beliefs’ in Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (2009: 97), the discussants conceive the archive as a multi-layered, collective repository of aspiration, dominance, desire, self-aggrandizement and fear through which the development of society’s self-image can be revealed but also – through a systematic and critical approach to the (visual) archive of coloniality – contested. Based on the analysis of visual cultures (photographs, news footage, advertisements, propaganda, fiction film, etc.) the Roundtable addresses and connects wide-ranging issues such as: the gaze from above and below in colonial-era ethnographic film; the depiction of migration in the Far Right’s rhetoric; representations of fears and fetishisms towards Others in Federico Fellini’s work; and the exploitation of the colonial past in the Italy–Libya Bilateral Agreements on migration. The Roundtable was organized in response to the surge in xenophobic violence sparked by the Italian Parliamentary elections of March 2018 and to mark the publication of Gaia Giuliani’s monograph Race, Nation, and Gender in Modern Italy: Intersectional Representations in Visual Culture (2018).

Personalization of Politics between Television and the Internet Leader Effects in the 2013 Italian Parliamentary Election

Previous research has proven reluctant in systematically addressing the role played by television exposure as a driver of personalization in voting behaviour. Similarly, the relationship between the rise of Internet-based political communication and the personalization trend has been under-investigated so far. This paper addresses these empirical questions through an analysis of Italy –– an ideal case for the study of the personalization of politics and its relationship with political communication. The results, showing the dominance of leader effects among voters strongly exposed to television and a somewhat differentiated impact on Internauts, are tested for their robustness across a wide range of alternative operationalizations of dependent and independent variables. By looking at leader effects across different audiences, this paper elaborates on the missing link between electoral research and political communication, and it eventually speaks to the broader question of how important is media for the outcome of contemporary democratic elections.

Personalization of Politics Between Television and the Internet: Leader Effects in the 2013 Italian Parliamentary Election

ABSTRACTThis paper provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between media exposure and leader effects on voting through an analysis of Italy––an ideal case for the study of the personalization of politics and its connection with political communication. The results show the dominance of leader effects among voters strongly exposed to television and a somewhat differentiated impact on Internauts. By looking at leader effects across different audiences, this paper elaborates on the missing link between electoral research and political communication, and it eventually speaks to the broader question of how important media is for the outcome of contemporary democratic elections.

Voting Advice Applications and Electoral Participation: A Multi-Method Study

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) help users casting a vote by offering an explicit ranking of viable options. The wide amount of readily available information provided by VAAs to users has been shown to contribute to reducing the transactional costs involved in gathering relevant political information. Available evidence also supports the idea that VAA users are more likely to cast a ballot in elections as a result. The extent to which electoral participation is caused by using a VAA, however, remains unclear. Against this background, we reassess the mobilizing effect of VAAs by means of a multi-method approach. Our cross-sectional analysis of 12 national election study data sets provides further support to the idea that VAA usage increases users’ chances of casting a ballot in elections as compared to non-users. This conclusion is strengthened by the results of a randomized field experiment conducted in the context of the 2013 Italian parliamentary election.

Rebel Rebel. Do Primary Elections Affect Legislators’ Behaviour? Insights from Italy

MPs elected in 2013 Italian parliamentary elections have been selected through three main procedures: open primaries, closed primaries and exclusive methods, meaning that they have been appointed directly by the party elites or party leaders. This peculiar layout of the Italian Parliament offers the opportunity to analyse the impact on the parliamentary behaviour of different selection methods within the same political context. Drawing from a large and original data set including parliamentary behaviour of all the Italian MPs elected in 2013 parliamentary elections, this article addresses the impact of candidate selection methods by focusing on the dimension of party unity. Our hypothesis is that inclusive procedures for selecting candidates may entail a low party unity degree, namely a higher MPs’ propensity to rebellion from party line. The analysis shows that the selection methods affect only marginally MPs’ parliamentary behaviour and not always in the expected direction.

Tracing the electorate of the MoVimento Cinque Stelle: an ecological inference analysis

The 2013 Italian parliamentary election was characterized by the outstanding performance of the MoVimento Cinque Stelle, which in its first participation in a general election obtained a remarkable 25% of the national vote. Where did these votes come from? Furthermore, is it possible to observe different electoral dynamics across geographical areas of Italy? In order to address these questions, we first estimate the flow of votes between the 2008 and 2013 general elections by applying an ecological inference method – the Goodman model – to the entire Italian voting population, and then we take a closer look at the differences in the four geopolitical areas in which Italy is traditionally divided. We find that the extraordinary performance of the MoVimento 5 Stelle was largely due to its capacity of attracting similar amounts of former Partito Democratico and Popolo della Libertà supporters, as well as a considerable amount of voters from their traditional allies: Lega Nord and Italia dei Valori. The MoVimento 5 Stelle was also able to mobilize previous non-voters. We shed light on the territorial features of these dynamics.

Invalid Ballots and Electoral Competition

In close elections, a sufficiently high share of invalid ballots—if driven by voter mistakes or electoral fraud—can jeopardize the electoral outcome. We study how the closeness of electoral race relates to the share of invalid ballots, under the traditional paper-ballot hand-counted voting technology. Using a large micro-level data set from the Italian parliamentary elections in 1994–2001, we find a strong robust negative relationship between the margin of victory of the leading candidate over the nearest rival and the share of invalid ballots. We argue that this relationship is not driven by voter mistakes, protest, or electoral fraud. The explanation that garners most support is that of rational allocation of effort by election officers and party representatives, with higher rates ofdetectionof invalid ballots in close elections.

Da Forza Italia e Alleanza Nazionale al Popolo della Libertà, e ritorno: dinamiche territoriali e contraddizioni politiche

Less than fi ve years after its formal establishment, the National Council of PDL – which met on 11-16-2013 at the ‘Palazzo dei Congressi’ in Rome – decided for the dissolution of the party and the subsequent confl ence of all its members and leaders in a new political entity which was called again Forza Italia. A party that – in the first two years of its political life – had proven to be a powerful tool with respect to various majoritarian electoral disputes, was definitively dismissed without any regret. Aside from the considerations linked to the gradual weakening of Silvio Berlusconi’s leadership, which is certainly a major issue, this article examines the impact of territorial dynamics – in particular, intra-party competition and party territorial roots – on the electoral results obtained by PDL in the 2013 Italian parliamentary elections. Unlike what argued
 for a long time, these dynamics have much affected those electoral results. Although the largest Italian center-right party still remains inextricably tied to the fluctuating fortunes of its founding leader (Silvio Berlusconi), in the future the so-called ‘moderate coalition’

Corruption Charges and Renomination Chances: Evidence from the 1994 Italian Parliamentary Election

In 1994, as Italian political elites were implicated in a large-scale anti-corruption judicial campaign, parties chose to face voters’ discontent by renominating some of the allegedly corrupt MPs. Given how extensively the media covered those investigations and how the public appeared to care about corruption, it is puzzling that incumbents investigated for corruption gained a chance to be reelected. I argue that, when corruption is salient to voters, legislators perceived to be more heavily involved in corruption are less likely to be renominated. Based on ongoing investigations, voters cannot establish for sure whether a legislator is corrupt or not. However, they will consider as corrupt legislators heavily implicated in corruption investigations and will punish them electorally, which should induce parties not to renominate them. I test the argument with data from the 1994 Italian parliamentary election, using the number of corruption charges as a proxy for involvement. Controlling for confounding factors such as media coverage, each additional charge is associated with a 6% decrease in renomination chances. Compared to MPs facing a single charge, those facing more charges were 20% less likely to be renominated. Overall, results confirm the negative relationship between perceived involvement in corruption and renomination.

Explaining the ‘dishonest vote’ in Italian parliamentary elections

In recent decades, citizens have grown increasingly distrustful of politics and its actors. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to shed light on the role of citizens themselves in the process by focusing on the determinants of their voting choices. As a matter of fact, a substantial proportion of voters in democratic elections actually cast a ‘dishonest vote’ – that is, a vote cast in favour of a candidate who is perceived as dishonest by the voter herself. Based on the available literature on political psychology and electoral behaviour, a number of competing hypotheses are advanced. These are tested using national election study data from the Second Italian Republic (2001–08). The statistical analyses presented show that the key determinant of the dishonest vote in Italian elections lies in a perception of every candidate being dishonest and, more generally, in a belief that politicians are ‘all the same’. The probability of casting a dishonest vote is higher among voters characterised by a lack of interest in politics and a comparatively lower degree of ‘civicness’. The results are then discussed along with their major implications for our understanding of democratic elections in times of growing political distrust.

Don't Count Your Chickens before They're Hatched: The 2013 Italian Parliamentary and Presidential Elections

The 2013 parliamentary and presidential contests were both outstanding elections, even by Italian standards. In the former case, this was because of very high volatility and the breakthrough of the 5-Star Movement (M5S), which resulted in a hung parliament and a stalemate in the formation of a new government. In the latter, for the first time in Italian history, the incumbent President of the Republic was re-elected for a second seven-year term of office. The result of these two events was Italy's first grand coalition government, led by Enrico Letta and supported by President Napolitano. While the significance of these elections is better assessed in combination with new government's capacity to achieve economic growth and restore confidence in Italian politics, the Italian party system still remains in a state of flux.

The 2013 Italian Parliamentary Election: Changing Things So Everything Stays the Same

The previous Italian parliamentary election of 2008 awarded the centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi with an unprecedentedly large majority in both the Chamber (54.6 per cent of seats) and the Senate (55.2 per cent). On paper this could stand as the ‘most cohesive government coalition in the history of the Second Republic’ (Chiaramonte and D’Alimonte 2012: 262). On this basis, the fourth Berlusconi cabinet was generally expected to be stable and durable. Yet this proved not to be the case due to a number of concurrent factors.