Segnalazione bibliografica. British Journal of Political Science (2011), 41: 259-285 Autori: John Bartle, Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda, James Stimson Abstract The political ‘centre’ is often discussed in debates about public policy and analyses of party strategies and election outcomes. Yet, to date, there has been little effort to estimate the political centre outside the United States. This article outlines a method of estimating the political centre using public opinion data collected for the period between 1950 and 2005. It is demonstrated that it is possible to measure the centre in Britain, that it moves over time, that it shifts in response to government activity...

This article analyzes the results of the Italian municipal elections held in May 2011. First, we make a simple count of the municipalities won by the various political blocs, and secondly we make a comparison with the results of regional elections of 2010. We have compared data concerning both the electoral performances of political blocs and those of the political parties who appeared in this election. We also present the results as disaggregated data, both from a demographic standpoint and from a geographical point of view. The analysis shows a clear electoral defeat of the center-right coalition, both in terms of municipalities lost and in terms of percentages of votes obtained. The fact that these two phenomena have occurred especially in the North, its traditional area of electoral strength, makes this defeat particularly significant. The center-left coalition, due to the difficulties of its opponent, gets a good result in terms of number of municipalities won, while not improving its performance in terms of percentages of votes obtained. The centrist coalition, finally, does not get a great performance in terms of votes obtained, but it often proves decisive in forcing the other two coalitions to the second ballot.

Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Brad Verhulst, Lindon J. Eaves, Peter K. Hatemi American Journal of Political Science 56(1), 34-51 (January 2012) Abstract The assumption in the personality and politics literature is that a person's personality motivates them to develop certain political attitudes later in life. This assumption is founded on the simple correlation between the two constructs and the observation that personality traits are genetically influenced and develop in infancy, whereas political preferences develop later in life. Work in psychology, behavioral genetics, and recently political science, however, has demonstrated that political preferences also develop in childhood and are equally influenced by genetic factors. These findings cast...

Ladrech, R. (2013). James Cronin, George Ross and James Shoch (eds), What’s left of the left: Democrats and social democrats in challenging times, reviewed by Robert Ladrech. Party Politics, 19(4), 687–688. http://doi.org/10.1177/1354068813485792 ...