86 ARTICOLI
Nicola Maggini è ricercatore in scienza politica presso il Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche dell’Università degli Studi di Milano. È membro del laboratorio di ricerca
spsTREND "Hans Schadee" e del CISE (Centro Italiano Studi Elettorali). In precedenza è stato Jean Monnet Fellow presso lo
Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies dell’
Istituto Universitario Europeo e ha partecipato a due progetti di ricerca europei Horizon 2020:
Sirius-Skills and Integration of Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Applicants in European Labour Markets e
TransSol-Transnational solidarity at times of crisis. Si è addottorato, con lode, in Scienza della Politica all’Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane nel marzo 2012. Ha pubblicato articoli in diverse riviste scientifiche italiane e internazionali, tra cui
Journal of Common Market Studies,
West European Politics,
American Behavioral Scientist,
South European Society and Politics, RISP-
Italian Political Science Review,
Journal of Contemporary European Research,
SocietàMutamentoPolitica-Rivista Italiana di Sociologia,
Sociological Research Online,
International Sociology e
Quaderni di Scienza Politica. Ha pubblicato, per Palgrave MacMillan, il libro
Young People’s Voting Behaviour in Europe. A Comparative Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). È inoltre coautore di diversi capitoli in volumi collettanei e ha co-curato numerosi volumi della serie dei Dossier CISE. Infine, è autore di diverse note di ricerca pubblicate nella serie dei
Dossier CISE. I suoi interessi di ricerca si concentrano sullo studio degli atteggiamenti e comportamenti socio-politici, dei sistemi elettorali, del comportamento di voto e della competizione partitica in prospettiva comparata.
The 2013 Italian general elections produced a largely unexpected and destabilizing outcome. The major surprise came from the Movimento 5 stelle (M5s, Five star movement), a brand new, anti-establishment political force which got more than 25% of the valid votes and turned out to be the largest party list in the domestic arena of the Chamber of deputies. The destabilizing nature of the outcome stemmed from the lack of a real winner which ended up in political stalemate. In fact, the center-left won in the Chamber of deputies, but not in the Senate and could not form a cabinet by itself. In the end, the Partito democratico (Pd, Democratic Party) was left with the only unpalatable option to have to form a ‘grand governing coalition’ with Berlusconi’s Popolo delle libertà (Pdl, People of freedom).
Indeed, the widespread expectation was that the center-left would win with a large margin. For a long time before the vote most of the polls had indicated that Bersani’s lead was large enough to make his coalition gain the absolute majority of seats in both chambers either alone or together with the Monti’s coalition. It was not the case. Actually, what really happened in the ballot box on February 24th and 25th is still unclear to some extent. Here we will try to give a brief and preliminary explanation, analyzing the background to the election, the results and the role played by the electoral systems, the aggregate vote shifts between the 2013 and 2008 elections, the geographical distributions of the vote, and, finally, the transformation of the party system.