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This article tests Poguntke and Webb's theory of 'electoral presidentialization' through a comparison of Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson. Johnson and Berlusconi stand as particular examples of 'electoral presidentialization', where dominance lies in power as an election 'winner' and 'mediatised leader'. This approach is highly contingent and reliant on continuous validation, and, as a result, both leaders failed to translate electoral 'autonomy' into concrete and lasting change. Utilising the three presidentialization 'faces', we identify three crucial weaknesses. First, their own electoral and mediatized focus created a pressure to permanently campaign and generate conflict, driving a 'politics of spectacle' that distracted from the politics of governing. Second, the centrality of their personality left them exposed to personal scrutiny, which increasingly focused on corruption, wrongdoing, and irregularities. Third, despite electoral command, their 'presidentialized' style rested on fragile party and coalition dynamics, leading to volatility and internal conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of increasing temperatures and of weather-related environmental disasters have become globally evident, including in the European Union (EU), where countries such as Italy have been recognized as being particularly vulnerable to climate change. As a response to these threats, the European Commission (EC) launched the European Green Deal in 2019 with the ambition of transforming the EU into a ‘fair and prosperous society with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy’ through a ‘socially just ecological transition’ by 2050 (EC 2019: 2). New policy instruments have been discussed and adopted at the European level to attain a Green and Fair Transition (GFT), such as the Social Climate Fund (SCF) created to support member states’ reduction of carbon emissions in the transport and building sectors. Despite a growing academic interest in the SCF in assessing the EC’s proposal and its environmental and social features, knowledge on the politics of the SCF remains limited. Building on research analysing the structure of party competition in the European Parliament (EP), this article investigates inter-party competition and coalition making on the adoption of the SCF. It does so by analysing voting behaviour on the SCF (draft and adopted) regulation, as discussed and voted for in the plenary sessions of the EP. The empirical focus is placed on Italian political parties, Italy being one of the major beneficiaries of the SCF but at the same time having recognised climate-related weaknesses and a lack of reform ambition on climate policies. Providing novel data on the politics behind the SCF, the article sheds light on the supporting coalitions as well as on the conflicts and synergies between Italian and other European political parties on green and fair transition matters.

US-based research showed that individuals rely on apolitical cues, like cars or clothes, to form expectations about others' political preferences. This article uses the concept of 'politicultural linking' — producing inferences about others from the perceived alignment between apolitical and political preferences — observing this behavior in Italy, a multi-party European context, through a survey vignette experiment on food preferences. We find that respondents associate vegan/ethnic foods with the political left and carnivore foods with the right. Moreover, ideological self-placement, news media exposure, and cultural consumption are associated with respondents' willingness to do politicultural linking. Finally, we observe that this behavior affects the propensity to interact and converse with others, with implications for social distance and political polarization dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Giorgia Meloni's political rise to power within the context of the neofascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), the post fascist Alleanza Nazionale (AN) and Fratelli d'Italia (FdI), as well as current populist politics. Fratelli d'Italia, I argue, embodies many of the ideas and political attitudes of what has been called a "gray neofascism": a form of populist, formally democratic authoritarianism that promotes a sanitized memory of fascism. I focus on this issue by examining Giorgia Meloni's autobiography and tracing her "roots" within the Roman neofascist and post fascist political world of Colle Oppio and her ascendance to political power. The paper concludes with an assessment of Meloni's leadership in power, her recent visit to North America, and her ambition to consolidate the political power of a new European Right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article investigates the impact of Brexit on Eurosceptic parties' arguments for leaving (or remaining in) the European Union (EU). Drawing on a comparative design, the article looks at the images and narratives of the EU that Eurosceptic parties in Italy and Germany have advanced in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum and reflects on the broader implications in terms of the prospects of further states leaving the EU. This research is motivated by two assumptions grounded in the literature on Euroscepticism and EU polity contestation: firstly, that Euroscepticism is fuelled by external circumstances that are exploited by interested political actors; and secondly, that both the Brexit referendum and the UK's departure from the EU have had a profound impact on discourses on the EU within member states, most importantly because this process has highlighted the real possibility of replacing EU membership with trade agreements and other specific arrangements. By means of a comparative analysis of the development of Eurosceptic discourse in Italy and Germany after Brexit, the article reveals that on the structural level, Eurozone membership remains the main obstacle to leaving the EU. Yet on the ideological level, Eurosceptic discourse in the two countries centers on two principles that are at odds with each other. Beyond the alleged lack of democratic representation within EU institutions that is pointed out by Eurosceptic parties in both countries, the main criticism of the EU project in Germany is that the country shares the costs of states with lower economic outputs. In Italy, on the other hand, the criticism is that the EU benefits wealthier states while constraining the country's opportunities for development.

The article conceptualizes character assassination (CA) as a tactic of populist communication on social media by using the case study of Italian politician Matteo Salvini. CA consists of personal attacks aimed at damaging the reputation of individuals, used as political means to attack the "enemies of the people." By means of CA, populists operate a shift from issues and arguments toward individual traits and behaviors. CA's importance is linked to the features of social media communication (i.e. disintermediation, speed, virality, fragmentation, emotionality). The article uses content analysis of tweets, and qualitative analysis of relevant examples; it demonstrates the strategic nature of CA in Salvini's communication and identifies five functions (i.e. polarizing, personalizing, symbolic, discriminating, emotional) of CA in right-wing populist communication. CA's logic is unpacked, by showing how the delegitimization of individuals is used to reinforce a populist communication strategy. Potential implications and responses to CA are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to unpack the mobilization of emotions in the political discourse of populist and non-populist parties and above all, across 'varieties of populism' (right wing vs. left wing or hybrid). Is there an empirical connection between emotions and populism? Are all types of populisms alike with regards to the emotional appeals within their political discourse? Focusing on Italy as a crucial case for populist communication and using a novel methodological approach based on supervised machine learning, it systematically investigates the intensity and trends of specific emotions in political discourses (institutional and informal, i.e. leaders' speeches) of all Italian political parties over the last 20 years, for a corpus of more than 13,000 sentences analysed. The findings confirm that (i) populists tend to use more (and a broader repertoire of) emotional appeals than non-populist parties; however (ii) overall, there is an increase in the use of these appeals in the Italian political party discourse over time, especially in terms of negative emotions; and, most importantly, (iii) different types of emotions are mobilized by different types of populisms. Right wing populism mainly uses negative emotions while left wing or hybrid populism employs positive emotional appeals. The communication arena (party manifestoes vs. speeches) nevertheless does matter in the degree and types of emotions mobilized by political actors. This study identifies important implications for research on emotional appeals in politics, populist communication and political campaigning, and populist contagion from an emotion-based perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the quality of elections is spreading very rapidly. This article aims to provide a general overview of the state of the art to introduce an empirical analysis of the quality of elections for the Italian parliament. After reviewing the definitions of 'quality of elections', the article thoroughly examines the two main measurement tools. One is based on the experts' perceptions and promoted as part of the Electoral Integrity Project. The other is based on objective data called the Elections Performance Index. Finally, the article applies the measurement method based on the residual vote to the Italian case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we concentrate on the question whether candidate selection mechanisms affect the propensity of members of parliament (MPs) to defect from party line. Literature suggests that MPs selected by more inclusive procedures (i.e. party primaries) are more likely to be rebels than legislators nominated directly by party leaders. Despite the increasing attention that scholars devote to candidate selection methods, empirical evidences are still limited and they are inconsistent, especially for as to concern the Italian case. Empirically, we focus our attention on the Democratic Party (Partito Democratico—PD) during the XVII legislature in Italy. The PD is an ideal laboratory to test whether candidate selection affects MPs' propensity to vote against party line because PD's legislators are both selected by party primaries and appointed by party leader. Our results suggest, in contrast to previous findings, that candidate selection is a strong predictor in explaining voting defection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at exploring the current Italian ecologist archipelago by focusing on three main dimensions: organization, «frame» and action repertoire. By investigating these dimensions, we would like to address some fundamental questions: a) how does the environmental movement in Italy look like today? Who are the protagonists? What are their patterns of action and their claims? b) How the relationships between protest and ecologist groups are? c) Where environmental claims can be placed between materialist and post-materialist perspectives? By drawing on a mixed qualitative/quantitative methodology, we aim to provide an updated overview about Italian environmentalism. We first use the Protest Event Analysis (PEA) to trace the main trends in terms of institutionalization/radicalization, territorialisation, alliance structure and other aspects of the environmental protest, and eventually further explore the issue through the frame analysis approach based mainly on in-depth interviews and the analysis of documents drafted by social movement actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party systems and party system change have long been one of the most studied topics within the comparative politics literature, yet most work in this field focuses on changes that occur between elections, neglecting the possibility that parties and party systems may reconfigure during the inter-election period. Building on the studies on party system change, this paper aims to analyse how individual changes in party affiliation can aggregate into changes at the level of parliamentary party system in the 18th Italian legislature. To achieve this goal, data on individual movements in the membership of parliamentary parties in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies are used to track the extent of party system change over time, as indicated by changes in the number of relevant parties, their relative size and strength, and the general structure of competition in the Italian parliament. Overall, our results show major changes in the main features of the Italian parliamentary party system and the structure of competition in the 18th legislature, returning the image of a fluid, unstable and constantly moving system.

The lack of financial resources is an often-cited hurdle for women pursuing political careers. However, empirical analysis of the dynamics of the private funding of women candidates and its potential implications for their political careers is still scant, particularly for countries outside the anglophone regions. This paper contributes to the scholarly debate by focusing on the gendered patterns in campaign fundraising in Italy, where radical changes to the party funding regime and multiple reforms to the electoral laws may have changed the structure of opportunity for fundraising by women candidates. We analyse patterns of private funding for men and women candidates in four national elections between 1996 and 2018. Our analysis, triangulated with semi-structured interviews with women candidates, shows that differences exist in fundraising patterns between male and female candidates in Italy. It reveals differences in the quality of candidates' fundraising networks and confirms that political affiliation (to right-wing parties) and incumbency have an effect on the amount of donations received, thus granting women candidates greater access to private donations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The snap election held in September 2022 saw the victory of the right-wing coalition, with a remarkable performance of the populist radical right party Fratelli d'Italia and its leader, Giorgia Meloni, who has become the first female Prime Minister of the country. Another unprecedented element concerns participation, which was the lowest in post-war Italy for a national election. Throughout this article, we first shed light on the background of this election, by highlighting how the specificities of the electoral system and previous developments during the last legislature affected the alliances among of political parties. We then proceed to the illustration of the results, with a territorial analysis of participation figures, vote share and competitiveness of electoral constituencies. Finally, we assess the implications of this election for the institutionalization of the party system. What emerges is a picture of growing abstention, disproportionality, fragmentation and electoral volatility, which suggests an overall consolidation of instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia [F.d.I.]) in Italian politics has raised debate on the party's core ideologies. This article addresses these questions on the basis of a qualitative content analysis of its party manifestos and discourses since its foundation in 2012. The development of the F.d.I.'s party ideology is analysed through the categories derived from the literature on the European radical right phenomenon. The findings confirm that F.d.I.'s ideology is based on a combination of nationalism, sovereignism, authoritarianism and Euro-scepticism. The article demonstrates that the party's ideology turned to radical right positions after 2017 and explains this shift in light of the instability affecting the Italian party system and the recurring European Union's (E.U.) crises during the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Candidate-centered electoral systems make it more convenient for politicians to cultivate a personal reputation. In order to cultivate personal followings, candidates provide goods and services to narrow segments of society in exchange for votes. While conventional wisdom in the comparative electoral systems’ literature tells us that there is a connection between candidate-centered electoral systems and political particularism, attempts to disclose a causal relationship are still rare. In this study, I employ regression-discontinuity design (RDD) to analyse the causal mechanism linking electoral incentives to particularistic policymaking in the Italian political system. The analysis is performed on a newly generated dataset on Italian individual members’ bill proposals (IMBPs), that covers the period from the 12th to the 14th legislative term. My findings show that the electoral system, per sé, does not cause a higher propensity to serve parochial interests in national assemblies. Descriptive evidence suggests localism, MPs’ political experience, and the interaction between electoral rules and electoral regulations as additional contributing factors.

The primacy of networks vs. identities divides research on activism. Analyzing activist commitment in CasaPound, a movement organization of the far right in contemporary Italy, this paper advances a sequential multipath theory of activist commitment. In the recruitment phase either networks or identities suffice for movement entry. During the follow-up phase of integration, networks and identities reinforce each other: each is a necessary but no longer a sufficient condition. In the final phase, commitment is solidified by affective ties and emotional investments. To make this argument, our theory introduces a typology that differentiates between coming home and finding home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From its 2012 beginnings as a marginal radical right splinter group, in the 2022 general election 'Fratelli d'Italia' (Brothers of Italy, FdI) was the most voted party and its leader, Giorgia Meloni, became the first Italian female Prime minister. While both leader and party can be classified as belonging to the populist radical right family, we argue that FdI must be understood also as a 'rooted newcomer', i.e. a party that can count on pre-existing organisational resources, building its appeal also on symbolic elements already familiar to the electorate when the party was formed. Focusing on the supply side, we tackle some of the main open questions related to the party's ambivalent nature, often fluctuating between a post-fascist profile and a frequently reiterated support for other European radical right illiberal leaders and more moderate positions. We identify the politics of illiberalism as the key challenge the party faces in its transition from opposition to government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) is the new rising star of Italian politics. Scholars and pundits briskly categorised it as a (new) populist radical right (PRR) party. Still, FdI's newness needs to be properly framed. A splinter party of the Popolo della Libertà, it claims a direct lineage with the Alleanza Nazionale – two cases not easily agglutinated into the PRR family. The article analyses the (dis)continuity associated with FdI, examining ideology, organisation, and the continuity of elites. It demonstrates that FdI's organisation and political elites largely overlap with its predecessor parties. However, FdI accomplished a major ideological rebranding, positioning itself as radically different from both the mainstream centre-right and the post-fascist tradition of the Italian right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many parts of the world, journalists tend to see themselves as playing an important role for the betterment of democracy. But what happens when newsmakers are faced with the question of whether to report, and how to report, on ultra-right actors? Whereas on one side, journalists are supposed to report on anything that is relevant, on the other, by reporting on it, they risk amplifying its significance. This dilemma becomes more complex when journalists deal with players who inhabit a grey zone in between legitimacy and deviance, as the ultra-right actors studied here. Although the kind of questions that newsmakers face might be similar to those they encounter when covering far-right populists or even terrorists, the fact that the ultra-right (at least in a country like Italy) has been historically tolerated as part of the normal political dialectic, raises additional concerns. Thus, the fundamental question is how reporters approach those who are known for their fascistic ideologies, yet who at the same time may be organized in political parties or cultural organizations, thus recognized by the state and somehow normalized in the public sphere. The empirical contribution is based upon data from in-depth interviews with 23 Italian journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the Italian movement of the Sardines that emerged in November 2019 as a reaction to the Lega, the radical right populist party led by Matteo Salvini. On the one hand, it shows that the movement was born out of the incapacity of Italian political parties to articulate an anti-populist response. On the other hand, it demonstrates that the movement was an expression of stylistic anti-populism. As such, the role of the Sardines was to promote a respectful and kind language, the physical mobilization of citizens that contrasted with Salvini's massive use of social media and defend the idea that politics is a complex issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of the 'yellow-green' government that took office in Italy after the general election held on 4 March 2018 looked puzzling to many commentators as the two coalition partners – the Five Star Movement and the League – appeared to be quite distant on the left–right continuum. In this article, we argue that despite being widely used in the literature, a unidimensional representation of parties' policy positions on the encompassing left–right scale is inadequate to explain the process of coalition governments' formation. We focus first on coalition outcomes in Italy in the period 2001–18. Our statistical analysis including, among other variables, parties' policy distance on the left–right dimension performs rather well until 2013 but fails to predict the coalition outcome in 2018. To solve the puzzle, we propose a two-dimensional spatial account of the Conte I government formation in which the first dimension coincides with the economic left–right and the second one is related to immigration, the European Union issues and social conservatism. We show that the coalition outcome ceases to be poorly understandable once parties' policy positions are measured along these two dimensions, rather than on the general left–right continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the voting determinants for partners of the first populist government in Western Europe, the first Conte cabinet. Although the Five Star Movement (FSM) and the League share a common populist root, they differ in their ideological morphology: the FSM embodies an almost pure populism with inclusionary tendencies, while the League expresses an exclusionary populism clearly anchored to the Right. The article explores how populism affects voting choices for these two parties, looking at the interconnections between the thin-centred populist ideology, other host ideologies and policy preferences. We show the importance of populism as a predictor of voting choices for these two parties, as well as marked ideological differences between the two electorates. Moreover, support for the main policies of the government has been mixed, a symptom of the poor cohesion between these two parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second part of this essay (the first was published in the last issue of «Ventunesimo Secolo») intends to demonstrate that Craxi was the last statesman, after Aldo Moro and Ugo La Malfa, to be aware of the political-institutional roots of the Italian crisis, trying to give it a solution. He was, in fact, the promoter of a transition of the Italian political system, that started at the end of the 1970s and which by no means ended with the collapse of the "first" Republic, with profound characteristics of socio-economic crisis. A transition that he was unable to achieve, just when he had given a significant testimony of his political abilities, remaining for almost four years head of the Government, with a quite favourable reception from public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 outbreak has had a strong impact on several aspects of private and public life all over the country. This article in particular deals with the impact of the pandemic crisis on attitudes towards the European Union. Based on an opinion survey administered after the COVID-19 first wave to a rep-resentative sample of Italians, this article provides preliminary results on whether the health crisis has impacted Italians’ perceptions of EU membership. Findings suggest that one fifth of the respondents changed their minds about the EU in a relatively short time span. Among possible explanations for this shift, party cueing is shown to be the most important factor in transforming public perception of Eu-rope, while the pattern is less clear for the perception of the pandemic risk and the economic outlook.

The review analyzes Marco Labbate's book on the history of conscientious objection, from the debate at the Constituent Assembly (1946-1948) to the approval of the law in 1972. The research is based on a large amount of sources: institutional archives, political debates, correspondence, daily and periodical press. The author describes the slow maturation in Italy of a democratic conscience around the issues of civil liberty and peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the eurozone crisis, technocratic governments were appointed in several eurozone countries, becoming in the eyes of many the embodiment of the EU's democratic deficit. In spite of the central place that these technocratic governments occupy in the scholarly debate, however, we have remarkably little evidence on Europeans' attitudes towards technocracy, and technocratic governments are under-studied from an empirical standpoint. We contribute to the very limited empirical literature on this topic by using a novel natural experiment design, in the context of the 2011 Italian crisis that led to the appointment of the Monti technocratic cabinet. We hypothesize that the effect of technocratic appointments on citizens' satisfaction with democracy is a priori uncertain, and it depends on the balance of a trade-off between reduced input participation and increased output effectiveness. Overall, the results point to citizens' attitudes towards technocracy being more complex than often assumed in the debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Parliament elections have often been defined second-order elections, focused on national rather than transnational issues. This paper investigates the combined impact of Eurosceptic populism and social media in the development of the campaign during the 2019 European Parliament elections. It evaluates how populist and non-populist politicians and parties campaigned for the European elections on Twitter by using the case study of Italy. Computer-assisted quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis of social media content are used to assess the relevance of Europe in political communication and the strategies used by different political actors. Findings show that the concept of nation plays a central role in the campaign, with Europe depicted either as an enemy (by nationalist populism) or a saviour (by pro-Europeans). Moreover, there is e tendency towards a “populist shift” in the communication style.

The 2018 elections in Italy produced an electoral outcome that caused much concern for the EU and often led to confrontation between Rome and Brussels, particularly over budget spending and migration policy. The coalition between ‘populist’ Five-Star Movement and the far-right League (Lega Nord) demonstrated a nationalist agenda and strong anti-EU sentiments. With over a year in power, the government saw the emergence of Matteo Salvini, whose dominance as the agenda setter continued to grow through his tough stance against migration. This was evidenced by the increased popularity and favourable results in the European Parliamentary elections of May 2019. The most recentofpolitical crises,in Italy which saw Salvini undermine his government to trigger new national elections to win the majority has backfired and left him sidelined with the creation of a new coalition between PD and the Five-Star Movement. This paper wishes to highlight the opportunity for the EU to show solidarity with Italy by supporting the new government on issues such as migration management and allowing flexibility on its budget. Taking this chance to improve Italian citizens’ attitudes towards the union is imperative to reducing the risk of Salvini returning to power.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Italian intellectuals participated in Italy’s reconstruction with an ideological commitment inspired by the African-American struggle for equal rights in the United States. Drawing on the work of many of the leading figures in postwar Italian culture, including Italo Calvino, Giorgio Caproni, Cesare Pavese, and Elio Vittorini, this essay argues that Italian intellectual impegno—defined as the effort to remake Italian culture and to guide Italian social reform—was united with a significant investment in the African-American cause. The author terms this tendency impegno nero and traces its development in the critical reception of African-American writers including W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright. Postwar impegno nero is then contrasted with the treatment of African-American themes under Fascism, when commentators had likewise condemned American racism, but had paradoxically linked their laments for the plight of African Americans with defenses of the racial policies of the Fascist regime. Indeed, Fascist colonialism and anti-Semitism were both justified through references to what Fascist intellectuals believed to be America’s greater injustices. After 1945, in contrast, Italian intellectuals advocated an international, interdependent campaign for justice, symbolizing national reforms by projecting them onto an emblematic America. In this way, impegno nero revived and revised the celebrated "myth of America" that had developed in Italy between the world wars. Advancing a new, postwar myth, Italian intellectuals adopted the African-American struggle in order to reinforce their own efforts in the ongoing struggle for justice in Italy.

Recently, the literature has devoted increasing attention to beliefs in conspiracy theories. Among various aspects of the phenomenon, it was found that conspiratorial attitudes are associated with political behaviour. In Italy, previous research found that Five Star Movement and right-wing parties' voters tend to show higher levels of conspiratorial thinking than other voters. However, the relationship between conspiracism and vote choice remains obscure. By analysing an Italian panel survey data collected before and after 2016 constitutional referendum, we show that the belief in conspiracy theories is associated with referendum vote choices, even when controlling for partisan opinions, leaders' evaluations, and perceived economic wealth. Moreover, the effect of conspiracism on referendum vote choice proves to be stronger among the supporters of the government, which promoted the referendum. This paper aims at shedding light on the processes of opinion formation and how these are affected by external attitudes, such as conspiratorial ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper evaluates several second-order factors to explain the outcomes of the 2020 constitutional referendum held in Italy. This particular referendum serves as a relevant case study to assess the significance of second-order factors, given its unique characteristics, including the simplicity of the referendum question regarding the reduction in the number of parliamentarians (MPs), the minimal impact on public finances resulting from this reduction, and the subsequent decrease in territorial democratic representation. While it might have been expected that a significant majority would vote in favour of the "No" option, thus preserving the current levels of territorial coverage (and democratic representation) of MPs, the actual results saw a substantial majority in favour of the "Yes" vote (69%). Our argument posits that the overwhelming prevalence of the "Yes" vote (to reduce the number of MPs), especially in poorer areas of the country, can be attributed to specific factors that influence individual evaluations in a direct-democratic setting. In greater detail, by using cross-sectional data, the paper tests the role of socio-economic condition, trust in institutions and political participation in affecting the referendum outcome. The results of our empirical analysis confirm our hypotheses, demonstrating that second-order factors indeed influenced the referendum's outcome. Specifically, our analysis reveals that: (i) a higher socio-economic condition could generate a higher share of "No" votes; (ii) a higher trust in institutions could lead to an increase in the share of "No" votes; finally, that (iii) an increase in political participation could produce a decrease in the share of "No" votes. In the concluding section of the paper, we discuss how this analysis contributes new insights to the study of voting behaviour in direct-democratic contexts., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This article retraces the events of the first Conte government from its difficult birth by contract through to its foreseen death and seeks to establish a connection between the political-institutional aspects of this unprecedented government alliance and the use of legislative instruments, as well as between the devaluation of Parliament and the successes of legislative parliamentary initiatives. This reconstruc-tion also compares the first months of the 18th legislature with the first months of the preceding legis-latures of the so-called ‘Second Republic’. The conclusion will be that this legislature distinguishes itself from certain preceding long-term legislatures (the 13th, 14th, 16th and 17th) by an approach orien-tated exclusively to the present and to constitutional reforms that are very small in dimension but huge in impact (such as reducing the number of parliamentarians). Like the other legislatures, it will end with a government and a majority which are different from the original ones, but perhaps with the same prime minister. When that will happen is obviously unclear.

Machiavelli's reflection on Fortuna constitutes a precious alternative to the philosophical and political projects based on the desire to immunize fully the political community. Machiavelli's acceptance of the aleatory and unpredictable in human life and in the life of the state is an antidote to the risks that the processes of self-immunization constitute for the life of individuals and of the political community. Machiavelli's political philosophy is based on the acceptance of a plurality of outcomes and is, consequently, different from the totalizing aspirations of the European philosophers of history.

This article focuses on the activities of the Italian social movement known as “Sardines”. The founders of the movement protest against the populists which have been increasingly present in Italian politics since the beginning of the 21st century. “Sardines” manifest their indignation principally through the demonstrations in the streets of Italian cities. They gather to suport free-from-verbal-violence public discourse and politics. “Sardines” activities are based on the idea of networking. On the one hand, it is an informal organization, acting without clear parti- tion and pronounced program, and on the other hand, based on Internet communication, which help to expand its influence. In this article, “Sardines” are compared with other similar and comparable social movements in Italy. This kind of activity shows that Italian politics requires changes in terms of social communication and methods of operation. Therefore, looking at the genesis of the “Sardines”, following thesis can be proposed: a movement that is all about social objection to the arbitrary politics may have a real impact on reformulating public discourse.

The 5 star movement (M5s) appeared on the Italian political scene in 2009, thanks to the comic actor Beppe Grillo and to the entrepreneur Gianroberto Casaleggio, an expert in web communication. At the beginning, it was presented as a political organization developing itself almost completely online, with no intermediate level between the centre and the local members. Despite its almost non-existent structure, the M5s became in 2013 – and then again in 2018 – the most voted Italian party. What is the origin of its electoral success which struck everyone, and how can one describe the role of the enterprise standing in the back-office of this success? Did the M5s really revive political activism among young people, or rather it gave life to a new form of mobilization direct by the top? This article tries to give an answer to these questions, by proposing an original hypothesis on the reasons that led to the birth of the party and to the transformations which moulded it into its current form.

European Parliament elections have often been defined second-order elections, focused on national rather than transnational issues. This paper investigates the combined impact of Eurosceptic populism and social media in the development of the campaign during the 2019 European Parliament elections. It evaluates how populist and non-populist politicians and parties campaigned for the European elections on Twitter by using the case study of Italy. Computer-assisted quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis of social media content are used to assess the relevance of Europe in political communication and the strategies used by different political actors. Findings show that the concept of nation plays a central role in the campaign, with Europe depicted either as an enemy (by nationalist populism) or a saviour (by pro-Europeans). Moreover, there is e tendency towards a "populist shift" in the communication style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs a quantitative content analysis of news stories (N=600) to compare how six websites of Italian national newspapers of different political orientations framed Roma people during the campaign for the 2018 Italian general election and in the six months following the formation of the government coalition between the far-right Northern League party and the Five Star Movement. Drawing from framing theory and, in particular, looking at diagnostic and prognostic frames and sources interviewed and quoted, the article shows that when talking about the Roma community, a clear ideological divide between right-wing and progressive newspapers emerged. In a trend that follows the shifting Italian political landscape, news outlets that are historically considered as centrist gave prominence almost exclusively to stories about the removal of Roma camps, evictions and arrests while neglecting the coverage of programmes that would support and help the Roma community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2018 elections in Italy produced an electoral outcome that caused much concern for the EU and often led to confrontation between Rome and Brussels, particularly over budget spending and migration policy. The coalition between 'populist' Five-Star Movement and the far-right League (Lega Nord) demonstrated a nationalist agenda and strong anti-EU sentiments. With over a year in power, the government saw the emergence of Matteo Salvini, whose dominance as the agenda setter continued to grow through his tough stance against migration. This was evidenced by the increased popularity and favourable results in the European Parliamentary elections of May 2019. The most recent of political crises, in Italy which saw Salvini undermine his government to trigger new national elections to win the majority has backfired and left him sidelined with the creation of a new coalition between PD and the Five-Star Movement. This paper wishes to highlight the opportunity for the EU to show solidarity with Italy by supporting the new government on issues such as migration management and allowing flexibility on its budget. Taking this chance to improve Italian citizens' attitudes towards the union is imperative to reducing the risk of Salvini returning to power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The March 2018 Italian general elections caused a sea change in the political system. The article seeks to analyse the elements of novelty present in the vote and the subsequent political developments by focusing on the victorious parties, the Lega and the Five-Star Movement. Their ideological appeal is placed within the context of the Europe-wide surge of populist parties, but also traced back to the long-term determinants of political dissatisfaction characterising modern Italy. While emphasising the magnitude of the populist wave, the balance of the evidence from the first months of the populist coalition government suggests that the liberal democratic institutions are not under imminent threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018 Italian general elections, the Lega has dramatically increased its consensus in the 'red belt', the central area of the country traditionally ruled by centre-left parties. Pundits have argued that this performance can be attributed to the new leadership of Matteo Salvini, who changed the ideological location of the Lega by transforming it in a national right-wing party. This article hypothesizes that geographical trajectories of diffusion of the party are associated with the prevalence of a neo-fascist minority present in the 'red belt' during the First Republic. By employing official electoral results at the municipality level, the article analyses the relationship between the percentages of votes for the MSI in 1976 and the Lega in the 2006–2018 period in Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche. The neo-fascist inheritance results to be associated with the vote for the Lega only in 2018, after the change in the political discourse and leadership of the party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]