Paolo Bellucci

The Political Consequences of Blame Attribution for the Economic Crisis in the 2013 Italian National Election

Abstract This article describes the events that brought about the dismissal of the Berlusconi government in November 2011 and the appointment of a cabinet led by former EU commissioner Mario Monti, before moving to an analysis of how popular perceptions of the economic and political situation have evolved since that time. Relying on an ITANES five-wave inter-electoral panel study, the article shows the EUs growing importance as a divisive political issue. Blaming the EU or the former Berlusconi government as a source of the economic crisis exerted a significant impact on party choice in the 2013 election, while retrospective sociotropic economic evaluations were conditional in their impact on the structure of blame attribution for the economic crisis.

Issues and leaders as vote determinants : the case of Italy

A growing literature highlights the importance of leader image as a determinant of voting in contemporary democracies and as a force now paralleling the explanatory power of traditional structural and ideological factors affecting voting choice. Yet the actual effect of leaders in the citizen’s vote calculus remains uncertain because of the potential reciprocal causation between leader evaluation and other vote determinants. Thus, the extent to which voters’ appreciation of leaders depends on their personality traits or on their policies, and how these forces variously influence the vote, is difficult to assess. To cope with this endogeneity problem we rely on instrumental variable estimation and two-stage regression analysis. We are able to show that in the highly polarized 2006 Italian legislative elections the net direct effect of leaders on voting choice was actually weaker than that exerted by issue preferences.

This time it’s different? Effects of the Eurovision Debate on young citizens and its consequence for EU democracy – evidence from a quasi-experiment in 24 countries

ABSTRACT For the very first time in EU history, the 2014 EP elections provided citizens with the opportunity to influence the nomination of the Commission President by casting a vote for the main Europarties’ ‘lead candidates’. By subjecting the position of the Commission President to an open political contest, many experts have formulated the expectation that heightened political competition would strengthen the weak electoral connection between EU citizens and EU legislators, which some consider a root cause for the EU’s lack of public support. In particular, this contest was on display in the so-called ‘Eurovision Debate’, a televised debate between the main contenders for the Commission President broadcasted live across Europe. Drawing on a quasi-experimental study conducted in 24 EU countries, we find that debate exposure led to increased cognitive and political involvement and EU support among young citizens. Unfortunately, the debate has only reached a very small audience.

Citizens’ policy mood, policies and election outcomes in Italy

ABSTRACT This article investigates the relationship between changes in Italians’ policy preferences and parties’ and governments’ responsiveness. It analyses whether there is a congruence between citizens’ policy preferences, on one side, and parties’ and governments’ ideological positions on the other. The study represents the first attempt to estimate the Italian ‘policy mood’ adopting a methodology already used for other political systems. We infer public preferences from more than 200 survey questions, administered more than 550 times between 1981 and 2015, which ask respondents to ‘take a side’ on several controversial domestic policy issues. Empirical results sustain the idea that public opinion acts as a thermostat to balance governments’ policy goals; and, at the same time, they provide somewhat stronger evidence for the argument that governments adapt their preferences to changes in public opinion. Finally, it is shown that there is a relationship between citizens’ preferences and their voting choices.

Understanding electoral politics in contemporary Italy: policy preferences, personalisation, partisanship and the economy

ABSTRACT This introductory essay to the Special Issue presents the articles which from various perspectives – representation, personalisation, partisanship and accountability – analyse the changing relationship between parties and voters in contemporary Italian politics. This collection shows that the Italian party system appears responsive to people’s demands and that public opinion holds governments accountable, and responsible for their actions. On the other hand, substantive changes have emerged with respect to the nature of partisanship, its supposed unique connection to a single party, and its determinants. Finally, as party leaders appear increasingly crucial for voter attitudes and choice, in making financial contributions, external donors pay more attention to individual politicians at the expense of their parties.

Introduction: why populism won

ABSTRACT This article introduces the Special Issue on the 2018 Italian general election. It presents the main features of the election and reviews contemporary models of voting choice in established democracies.

Il voto italiano all’estero: riflessioni, esperienze e risultati di un’indagine in Australia

how Italian culture had been deeply imbued over the centuries with the precepts and values of Roman Catholicism, thereby rendering the country better suited to authoritarianism than liberalism. The most influential exponent of this line of thought was Julius Evola, to whom an entire chapter of the book is dedicated. A somewhat maverick and marginal figure in the 1930s, Evola emerged after 1945 as a key intellectual in neo-fascist circles (and not just in Italy: Cassina Wolff notes his wide and enduring appeal in many other European countries, especially of the former Soviet bloc). Evola’s critique of Western decadence, as set out most famously in his 1934 book, Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (Revolt Against the Modern World), his defence of what he called ‘the Tradition’ –with its commitment to authority, order and obedience – and his celebration of the ‘legionary spirit’, with its virtues of honour, courage and self-abnegation – provided neo-fascists with a philosophical and historical justification for the fascist regime and the Second World War (seen as a principled bid by Italy, Germany and Japan to safeguard ‘the Tradition’) and for their belief in anti-democratic elitism. Cassina Wolff’s careful examination of neo-fascist writings shows that, far from being simply ‘nostalgic’ (and politically anachronistic), the Italian far right after the SecondWorld War set out to engage seriously with the political and social realities of the new Republic. And the fact that the Republic had to contend from the outset with widespread popular disquiet (a disquiet that could readily be couched in stereotypical views of Italian society and the Italian character) enabled the neo-fascists to acquire considerably more political space and purchase than the catastrophe of 1940–45 might have entitled them to expect. The MSI survived the attempts at the beginning of the 1950s to uphold the anti-fascist spirit of the Constitution (e.g. through the Scelba Law of 1952) and quickly established itself as a major player in parliament, with close affinities to the Christian Democrats in particular. As a result, neo-fascism was able to insinuate itself morally as well as politically deep into contemporary Italy.

¿Importa Europa en las elecciones europeas?: Un modelo explicativo de las elecciones del 2009 al Parlamento Europeo

Resumen es: Este trabajo evalua la validez de diferentes modelos interpretativos del comportamiento electoral en las elecciones europeas partiendo del resultado de j...