GROFMAN, B., CHIARAMONTE, A., D’ALIMONTE, R. D. R., & FELD, S. (2004). Comparing and Contrasting the Uses of Two Graphical Tools for Displaying Patterns of Multyparty Competition. Nagayama Diagrams and Simplex Representations. PARTY POLITICS, 10,...

Il principale obiettivo del capitolo è quello di analizzare la partecipazione alle elezioni primarie nazionali del 2012 (primo turno e ballottaggio) cercando altresì di comprendere come le diverse dinamiche di partecipazione che si sono realizzate nei due turni di voto nonché le differenze fra le diverse aree territoriali del paese hanno inciso sul risultato elettorale finale delle primarie. L’analisi della partecipazione sarà effettuata sia attraverso una disaggregazione dei dati elettorali a livello regionale e provinciale, sia tramite il confronto con le elezioni primarie del 2005 e del 2009. Inoltre saranno presi in esami diversi indicatori al fine di “misurare” la partecipazione e interpretarne i risultati: fra questi, la densità territoriale dei seggi elettorali, il tasso di membership ai partiti di centrosinistra, il rapporto tra votanti alle primarie e ed elettori del centrosinistra alle ultime politiche. L’ultima parte del capitolo sarà invece dedicata all’analisi della relazione fra partecipazione alle primarie e scelta di voto a favore dei candidati. In questa parte, all’analisi dei dati ecologici verrà affiancato l’utilizzo dei dati di sondaggio. In particolare si cercherà di verificare se la precedente partecipazione ad altre primarie da parte degli elettori ha avuto un peso sulla scelta di voto tra Bersani e Renzi.

The economic crisis, the fall of the Berlusconi’s cabinet in November 2011 and the formation of the technocratic cabinet led by Mario Monti provided the ground for the general elections held in February 2013, which reached a stalemate, contrary to what most observers expected. The center-left coalition won in the Chamber but not in the Senate. The result in the Senate made it impossible to form a majority coalition between Bersani’s left and Monti’s center, which many considered the most likely outcome of these elections. In the end, the only available option for the PD, the winner in the Chamber, was to form a cabinet with Berlusconi’s PdL. There are many factors explaining this destabilizing result. The first and most important is the success of a brand new anti-establishment party, the Five Star Movement, which attracted voters from across the political spectrum and became the largest party in the country. The second is the inability of the center-left not only to extend its electoral base at a time when the center-right lost almost half of the votes received in 2008, but also to keep its previous electorate. The third factor is the peculiar nature and functioning of the electoral system for the Senate.

The literature highlights how different individual levels of political interest and knowledge matter for political attitudes and behavior. A logical-quantitative voting model is thus proposed for a two-party system, based on voters' left–right ideological positions and their degree of political involvement. The model hypothesizes that although more involved voters generally behave in accordance with their ideological orientation, those who are less involved do not. Moreover, the latter tend to be more undecided and therefore likely to be more strongly influenced by campaign activities. This model is then applied to survey data regarding the 2001 Italian general elections. Results confirm the hypotheses and show that the most competitive area is ideologically a narrow centrist area for very involved citizens, becoming wider as the level of involvement decreases. Separate analyses are carried out for different geopolitical areas of the country, with results fitting the political history of these areas.