Suchergebnisse

Introduzione
In un sistema d'alternanza, un tipico
esito elettorale è quello in virtù del quale il
partito o la coalizione vincente accede alle
funzioni di governo grazie ad un margine di voti
esiguo, sufficiente tuttavia a fare la differenza
rispetto alla coalizione avversaria e, magari,
rispetto al proprio risultato delle elezioni
precedenti. Se, tuttavia, i punti percentuali che
una coalizione acquista (o perde) da un'elezione
all'altra sono attribuibili a una pluralità di
fattori (dal ricambio generazionale degli
elettori, alla multidirezionalità dei flussi di
voto, al peso di volta in volta variabile
dell'astensionismo) più complessi di quelli
rilevabili con una semplice operazione algebrica
(del tipo: «35% all'elezione e, 40% all'elezione
e2, uguale 5% di nuovi
elettori»), resta però assai plausibile che le
differenze percentuali tra una coalizione e
l'altra ad un dato scrutinio possano essere
determinate dal comportamento di una minoranza di
elettori «marginali». E ciò è tanto più plausibile
quanto più decisivi si rivelano quei seggi
aggiudicati alla coalizione vincente, collegio per
collegio, sulla base di pochi voti di scarto,
sovente frutto di scelte effettuate da elettori
rimasti indecisi fino all'ultimo momento.

Starting from an analysis of the relationship between cognitive variables (such as the "level of interest in politics") & evaluative-affective variables (in particular, individual evaluations of political leaders), this article explores the perception that different segments of the electorate had of Silvio Berlusconi & of his Center-Left opponent Francesco Rutelli. Focus is on the degree of popularity of the two candidates & voters' opinions of their personal & political qualities. These two aspects of the candidate evaluation process are taken into account in both relational & diachronic terms, the former with special attention to the concept of "coalition belonging" that applies the classic notion of partisanship to the new main cleavage in Italian electoral politics, & the latter monitoring the evolution of voters' attitudes toward the candidates & identifying four main effects of the electoral campaign: "polarization," "involvement gap," "vedette," & "disenchantment.". 19 Tables, 1 Figure, 20 References. Adapted from the source document.

This volume investigates the role of social media in European politics in changing the focus, frames and actors of public discourse around the EU decision-making process. Throughout the collection, the contributors test the hypothesis that the internet and social media are promoting a structural transformation of European public spheres which goes well beyond previously known processes of mediatisation of EU politics. This transformation addresses more fundamental challenges in terms of changing power relations, through processes of active citizen empowerment and exertion of digitally networked counter-power by civil society, news media, and political actors, as well as rising contestation of representative legitimacy of the EU institutions. Social Media and European Politics offers a comprehensive approach to the analysis of political agency and social media in European Union politics, by bringing together scholarly works from the fields of public sphere theory, digital media, political networks, journalism studies, euroscepticism, political activism and social movements, political parties and election campaigning, public opinion and audience studies.

This volume investigates the role of social media in European politics in changing the focus, frames and actors of public discourse around the EU decision-making process. Throughout the collection, the contributors test the hypothesis that the internet and social media are promoting a structural transformation of European public spheres which goes well beyond previously known processes of mediatisation of EU politics. This transformation addresses more fundamental challenges in terms of changing power relations, through processes of active citizen empowerment and exertion of digitally networked counter-power by civil society, news media, and political actors, as well as rising contestation of representative legitimacy of the EU institutions. Social Media and European Politics offers a comprehensive approach to the analysis of political agency and social media in European Union politics, by bringing together scholarly works from the fields of public sphere theory, digital media, political networks, journalism studies, euroscepticism, political activism and social movements, political parties and election campaigning, public opinion and audience studies.

In recent years, the Front National, under the leadership of Marine Le Pen, has experienced a political revival. In elections, membership numbers and public opinion polls, the party has made impressive gains. We argue in this article that these gains stem, at least in part, from a strategic repositioning of the party based on a more populist discourse and communication style. Through a content analysis of posts (press releases) on the party's Facebook page from 2013 to 2015, we first highlight that, besides giving the Front National a more presentable image, Marine Le Pen has changed the Front National on two fronts: (1) she has rendered the party's discourse more populist and (2) she has managed to reframe the party's leitmotif of immigration. Second, through quantitative analysis of 'Likes' for each post, we find that this new discourse resonates well with Front National sympathizers.

AbstractPrevious work on nonverbal cues has demonstrated the influence of candidates' facial displays on voter preferences. However, the idea that visual cues affect political judgment by signaling the relative social solidarity (in-group vs. out-group status) between candidates and voters has received little attention. We fill this gap by experimentally manipulating facial cues associated with the physical features of gender and ethnicity (Afrocentric vs. Eurocentric-looking) and assessing their effects on candidate support in the context of the Italian 2013 general election. The experimental design is based on a CAWI post-election online survey conducted on a representative sample of Italian voters. We find that group differences between candidates and voters matter, but only among right of center voters, who respond more negatively to party candidates expressing "combined" (party x gender x ethnicity) dissimilarity. Gender- and ethnicity-based differences are, on the contrary, "assimilated" and accepted when the target candidate is from the voter's party.

This article analyses so-called 'subjective union membership' among employees and non-employees in Italy between 1972 and 2013. Unlike trends drawn from administrative data ('objective membership'), subjective membership, based on the declaration of the respondent, takes into account respondents' awareness of being affiliated to a union, their sense of belonging and the social desirability of stating their membership status. Instrumental and ideational rationales inform our cross-sectional and longitudinal hypotheses. Using an ITANES pooled dataset based on 11,073 observations over 40 years (1972–2013), two major findings emerge. First, only a minority of politically engaged left-wing individuals have maintained the same probability of declaring themselves union members since the early 1970s. Secondly, subjective membership has sharply decreased over time not only among employees, but also – in clear contrast to administrative data – among non-employees. Subjective measures are thus particularly useful in improving our understanding of union membership.

Gender and race biases persist in western democracies, with male and white candidates still being the norm. Voters may be more inclined to express sexist and racist attitudes in countries with a traditionally male-dominated political system and a majority-white population. As sexism and racism are notoriously difficult to document, and because many people are unaware of their biases toward social groups, we bypass conventional survey measurement and observe voters' willingness to support candidates whose physical features have been manipulated to make them appear more prototypically feminine or non-white. We implemented this approach in the context of the 2013 Italian election, by presenting a national sample of Italian voters with pictures of male and female parliamentary candidates – both unknown and well known. Overall, we found no main effects of gender or race bias in political judgment. For Italian voters, party cues are by far the most powerful indicators of out-group status, and therefore the strongest predictors of candidate perception and support. This result may be of particular interest to other political contexts characterized by strong partisan polarization.