(English translation by Elisabetta Mannoni) So Macron and Le Pen get to the second round. An historical result that - as almost all commentators highlighted - excludes both socialists and the neo-Gaullist right, who had dominated the French political life for decades. However, what are the reasons and voting motivations behind this result? Where does Macron’s success come from? What about his cross-cutting appeal? What about Mélenchon’s exploit? Does it come from his controversial positions? Or is it a identification vote by the French left, disappointed with the Hamon candidacy? We can’t answer to these questions only by looking at the...

The decision by Theresa May to call a snap election has gone against her. Despite remaining the largest party in Westminster, the Conservatives have fallen short of an absolute majority of seats, and a hung Parliament is the outcome of this election. Jeremy Corbyn has brought the Labour Party to 40% of the votes, the largest result since 2001. In a context characterised by the highest turnout since 1997 (69%), a massive shift back towards a two-party system has occurred: the UKIP has collapsed, the SNP has stepped back, and the Liberal Democrats have not bounced back after the...

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....

Lorenzo De Sio Party systems across the Western world appear increasingly challenged. After the 1990s and 2000s saw the prevalence of a two-bloc (or two-party) competition by mainstream parties with relatively similar, moderate policies, recent years have seen an unprecedented emergence of successful challenger parties (and leaders), with examples both on the right-wing (e.g. Donald Trump, the UKIP, the Front National) and on the left wing (e.g. Bernie Sanders, SYRIZA, Podemos, Jeremy Corbyn and Benoît Hamon). Such new, challenger parties and leaders share instead a conflictual emphasis on a relatively small set of controversial policy issues that have proved electorally...

As witnessed by the emphasis and the media coverage of pundits and journalists from all over Europe, the French Presidential election (first round on April 23rd) can potentially be crossroad in European history. Indeed, in an increasingly unpredictable international context, France’s right-wing and left-wing anti-establishment and Eurosceptic forces are rising at the expense of traditional mainstream parties. Opinion polls have not only put Marine Le Pen in the first position of the first round since the beginning of the campaign, for the first time the leader of the Front National seems to be competitive in the second round. Moreover,...