Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Kathleen Bawn e Zeynep Somer-Topcu American Journal of Political Science, Volume 56, Number 2, 1 April 2012 , pp. 433-446(14) Abstract We argue that governing status affects how voters react to extreme versus moderate policy positions. Being in government forces parties to compromise and to accept ideologically unappealing choices as the best among available alternatives. Steady exposure to government parties in this role and frequent policy compromise by governing parties lead voters to discount the positions of parties when they are in government. Hence, government parties do better in elections when they offset this discounting by taking relatively extreme positions. The...

Segnalazione bibliografica. European Journal of Political Research, online version Autori: Micheal F. Effert, Thomas Gschwend Abstract Polls and coalition signals can help strategic voters in multiparty systems with proportional representation and coalition governments to optimise their vote decision. Using a laboratory experiment embedded in two real election campaigns, this study focuses on voters' attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals. The manipulation of polls and coalition signals allows a causal test of their influence on strategic voting in a realistic environment. The findings suggest that active information acquisition to form fairly accurate perceptions of election outcomes can compensate for the advantage...

Emanuele, V. (2015). Vote (de-) nationalisation and party system change in Italy (1948–2013). Contemporary Italian Politics, (ahead-of-print), 1-22. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23248823.2015.1076617#.VeYOsfbtmko Abstract The nationalisation of politics is a major political phenomenon deriving from the historical trend towards the formation of national electorates and party systems brought about by the progressive reduction in the significance of territorial cleavages. During the last 50 years, though the issue of vote nationalisation has been addressed by a large volume of literature, serious analysis of the Italian case has never made much progress, having been limited to the reflections of a few isolated authors. Over the past 20 years, a period...

Despite primary elections in Italy continue to be asymmetric – i.e. carried out only by the center-left coalition – their ability to involve the electorate and their growing media impact make it a powerful democratic tool. In this article we study the 2012 Italian primary elections, held by the center-left coalition in order to select the prime ministerial candidate for the 2013 general elections. In particular, we will shed light on three dimensions: turnout, electoral results and competitiveness. We will also take into account the role played by the new candidate selection rule – the two-round system – which will allow us to collect a lot of information about the voting behavior of the selectorate. What has been the turnout level in the 2012 Italian primary elections? Which similarities and differences can be found in the patterns of participation between the first and the second round? Which factors may explain the territorial differences in turnout levels? What have been the territorial patterns of voting behavior for the main candidates? The 2012 primary elections have been more or less competitive with respect to the previous Italian national primaries? We will try to address these questions through the use of a mainly quantitative methodology with aggregate data.