Next Sunday German voters are called to the polls to elect the new members of the Bundestag. It will be the fourth legislative elections in an important UE country this year, following the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom. Unlike in the aforementioned cases, in Germany the electoral outcome appears to be quite certain. According to recent opinion polls, the CDU-CSU (the party led by Chancellor Merkel) should receive roughly 36% of votes, a 5-point decrease compared to the extraordinary result achieved in 2013. The SPD, led by Mr. Schultz, should get a little over 20%. Not enough to challenge Mrs....

Il prossimo 9 aprile Israele tornerà al voto dopo quattro anni per eleggere il proprio Parlamento nazionale, la Knesset. Si tratta di un parlamento monocamerale composto da 120 membri eletti, in una circoscrizione unica nazionale, con un sistema proporzionale leggermente corretto da una soglia di sbarramento del 3,25%. Va quindi concludendosi la terza legislatura consecutiva caratterizzata dal susseguirsi di Governi di centrodestra, sostenuti da una maggioranza costruita attorno al Likud, il principale partito conservatore, e dal suo leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. Quest’ultimo, ormai ininterrottamente al potere dal 2009 (ma anche, si ricorda, dal 1996-1999), si staglia come la figura forte del...

The major winners of the 2017 Austrian election held on October 15 were the parties of the right of the ideological spectrum. The Christian democratic People’s Party (ÖVP) obtained 31.5% of votes, coming in first place and increasing its vote share by more than 7 percentage points and obtaining 15 parliamentary seats more compared to the last general election held in 2013. Despite being unable to secure the second position and to equal the all-time high election results of 1999, the populist far right Freedom party (FPÖ) increased its vote share since 2013 by 5.5 points to 26 per...

Few days before the general election in Spain, some surprising evidence emerges from the ICCP (Issue Competition Comparative Project) pre-electoral survey: what we could call a return of ideological polarization; and along classic lines of conflict that have characterized the Spanish party system in past decades. In a nutshell, this is due to the relevance of relatively new parties such as Podemos and Vox, whose constituencies appear ideologically consistent in terms of left-wing or right-wing stances across multiple issues. This sets these Spanish parties apart from other recent challenger parties in other European countries, which mix and match both...