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Segnalazione bibliografica. West European Politics (March 2011), Vol. 34, N. 2, pp. 362-383 Autore: Ross Campbell Abstract: One of the defining features of post-reunified East German political culture has been an enduring affinity for socialism. Although firmly opposed to the pre-1989 one-party state, a sizeable majority of East Germans nevertheless continue to value socialism. Whilst much scholarly research has investigated the strength and depth of socialist values, as well as their sources, comparatively little is known about their consequences, about if and how socialist values matter. This article seeks to redress this by examining linkages between socialist values and political participation, asking whether...

Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Heinz Brandenburg e Marcel Van Egmond British Journal of Political Science 42, 441-463 (April 2012) Abstract This study reassesses the ability of the mass media to influence voter opinions directly. Combining data on media content with individuals’ assessments of British political parties during the 2005 general election campaign allows a test of newspapers’ persuasive influence in a way previously considered a ‘virtual impossibility’. Utilizing repeated measures from the 2005 BES campaign panel, multilevel regression analysis reveals significant impact of partisan slant not just on the evaluation of the party mentioned but also on evaluations of its competitor(s). The strongest evidence of...

This article aims to rediscover a variable that has been rather neglected by the Italian electoral studies on the so called «Second Republic»: demographic size of municipalities. Is there a difference between a citizen who votes in a small municipality of North-east and another one who votes in Milan? Between voting in a rural village or in an urban metropolis? In other words, is territory – considered as centrality or peripherality of the municipality where vote is cast – important to understand Italians’ electoral choices? And if so, how much it matters? May it even become a decisive dimension for the electoral results? Moving from these questions, the article analyzes the results of 2008 Italian general election by dividing the more than 8.000 Italian municipalities in 5 classes of demographic size (0-5.000, 5.001-15.000, 15.001-50.000, 50.001-100.000, above 100.000) and the territory of our country in 4 geo-political sub-units (North-west, North-east, Red belt and South) in order to develop a complete mapping of the incidence of demographic variable on the vote. This study concerns the 2008 vote to main Italian parties, coalitions and electoral blocs and uses the analysis of variance to calculate the tightness of the association between the above variable and the vote through a synthetic index. The findings are very interesting and in some ways surprising. Demographic size matters, especially in some areas (North) and for some parties (Northern League, Pd, Udc, Idv). In particular, three possible behaviours occur: some parties, definable as «city oriented», tends to achieve increasing electoral results whenever the size of municipality grows (eg. Pd, Idv); other parties, labelled as «village oriented», show an opposite trend, that is strongly rooted in small towns and a systematic loss of votes when demographic size increases (Northern League, Udc); the third type of behaviour is given by some «all around» political forces (Pdl, La Destra, Mpa) that show indifference to the variable. An even more pronounced effect could be found in coalitions and blocs analysis, with the centre-left collecting a strictly urban vote and the centre-right stronger in small towns.