(traduzione a cura di Elisabetta Mannoni) Notwithstanding Macron’s victory, the result of the French Presidential election is the prove that an earthquake hit the political setting in France with the exclusion – for the very first time since 1958 – of both pillars of Fifth Republic, the socialist and the Gaullist parties. The second round between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen perfectly represents the increased relevance of a new dimension of competition, different from the left-right one that had prevailed so far. A dimension which is orthogonal with respect to the left-right axis, and for which the scientific research has...

Introduction Three contextual factors are important for understanding the results of the election in the Czech Republic. Also, the party system has changed dramatically in the recent decade showing the unprecedented decline of the old political parties and the emergence of different anti-establishment challengers after a series of corruption scandals, government instability coupled with the Great Recession (Balík, Hloušek 2016). The EP election took place in times of exceptional economic prosperity. The Czech Republic has experienced a record increase in salaries and has been enjoying the lowest level of unemployment among the EU member states. Last but not least, the...

Building on the tools provided by issue yield theory (De Sio and Weber 2014), this analysis looks at the data collected by CISE through a CAWI survey launched a few weeks before the first round of the French presidential election. We rely here on an innovative measurement of positional issues, which provides a common issue yield index for this type of issues. Positional issues are, in general, defined by reference to two rival goals (e.g. progressive vs. traditional morality): the issue yield measure assesses the presence of related strategic issue opportunities for a party or a candidate. The core dimensions originally...

di Roberto D'Alimonte Articolo pubblicato sul Financial Times il 14 febbraio 2013 Can Silvio Berlusconi do it? A few weeks ago the prospect that  Italy's  former prime minister  would stage a comeback was laughable.  Now, with less than two weeks to go before polling day, it may be the media magnate  and playboy former premier  who has the last  laugh.  The last  opinion polls published  before an official blackout period point to a closer race than many expected: the gap between Pier Luigi Bersani's  left-of-centre coalition  and Mr Berlusconi's  right­ of-centre alliance  has  narrowed  to 5-6 percentage  points. In most western...

The eventful and unconventional campaign for the French presidential elections (partly) came to an end on Sunday night. Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron (24,0%) and radical right Marine Le Pen (21,3%) of the Front National have both qualified for the run-off of the presidential election. Even though polls had predicted this results in the months coming to the election, it still constitutes a surprise. The outcome is historically close, and 4 candidates have gathered around 20% of the electorate, and both mainstream parties have been eliminated. After Macron and Le Pen, right-wing candidate François Fillon (20,0%) and radical left Jean-Luc...