Nicola Maggini,  Young People’s Voting Behaviour in Europe. A Comparative Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Nicola Maggini, interviewed by Gianmarco Botti (English translation by Elisabetta Mannoni) What is your book about and why is it innovative? The book is about young people’s voting behavior in six European countries - namely Italy, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom - in a long-time perspective, from 1981 to the first years of the 21st century. The comparative approach is thus both a synchronic as well as a diachronic one. To be more precise, the book analyzes the determinants of young people’s voting behavior in...

  Introduction On May 17, 2019, the campaign for the European Parliament election 2019 came to an abrupt halt in Austria. That evening, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the German magazine Der Spiegel released a video that resulted in one of the biggest national political scandals in Austrian history, now known as “Ibiza-gate”. In the video – secretly recorded shortly before the national election in 2017 – the FPÖ-party leader Heinz-Christian Strache and deputy leader Johann Gudenus revealed modes of illegally funding the FPÖ, promising government orders at inflated prices to a purported niece of a Russian oligarch in a...

In view of the next general election in Britain, to be held next 8th June, the CISE (Italian Center for Electoral Studies) has conducted a CAWI survey on the adult British population. Similarly to what we have recently done before the Dutch parliamentary election last March and the French Presidential election last April, British respondents were asked to express their support on 18 positional issues (divisive issues that refer to two rival goals, e.g. public spending vs. tax cuts). Specifically, each respondent was asked to position himself/herself on a 6-point scale where the points 1 and 6 represent the...

Introduction Romania organized elections for the European Parliament (EP) for the third time since joining the European Union (EU) in 2007. This time the elections overlapped with Romania holding the six-month rotating Presidency of the EU. During this Presidency, Romania organized different meetings with representatives of the member states, intensively covered by national media. As a result, the European agenda became more visible in the public debate, the peak being reached during the informal summit of heads of state or government of the EU organized in Sibiu to discuss the EU strategic agenda for the post-election period. Political context Romania is regularly...

Beyond the study of the issues that are considered as a priority, another interesting aspect of the survey conducted by the CISE (Italian Center for Electoral Studies) in view of the next UK general election, refers to the support accorded by voters to 18 positional issues, selected in cooperation with a team of British researchers. Specifically, each respondent was asked to position himself on a 6-point scale where the points 1 and 6 represent the two rival goals to be pursued on a given issue. Looking at the configuration of voters’ support for the different issues will allow us...