Come cambia la rappresentanza politica in Italia La decisione di voto nel ciclo elettorale 2013-2015
Project “Representation is shaped by the interaction of competing parties, citizen's choices,
and election rules.” (Powell 2004). Powell's definition of representation nicely summarize the three dimensions of the problem this project will deal with in order to
understand to what extent the current economic and political crisis might change the working of electoral representation in the next three years electoral cycle.
As to the parties, after a 20 years long season of polarized and fragmented bipolarism, competition between main parties seems have disappeared. This change is
occurring when the economic crisis hits severely voters and it may well become a major source of change of their opinion on issues, political outlooks and perception
of parties. Weakened party competition and the state of economic can affect two dimensions of political representation.
They can blur the accountability of the incumbent government, obscuring who is responsible for what. Both previous factors can alter the substantive dimension of
representation, weakening the congruence between voters' opinion and candidates and parties platforms.
Finally even the procedural dimension of representation might change, if the current electoral rules will change. But even they will not change, it remains to be seen
how the end of coalition-based politics might interact with the electoral procedures, making more territorially variable the relation between votes and seats.
Political representation is not only constrained within a general election in which the voters are making their most thoughtful choice. It develops over the electoral
cycle. It is affected by the aggregated results of decisions of many voters and the message they want to send the government in second order elections.
It has a pre-electoral momentum and a post-electoral one. In the pre-electoral phase parties define their platforms. Candidates take issue positions. Media channel
platforms and issue positions to the voters. The second phase is centered on the interaction between parliaments and government, and the MPs becomes the key actor
of the representation linkage.
The project under review wants to analyze the political representation according to four different but highly integrated directions.
1. as to the voters' side, the project will examines their voting function not only at the Parlimentary elections but within the FOE and SOE cycle 2013-2015. The
research design will unravel the microfoundations of party choice and turnout in elections of different order, including the individual determinants of retrospective
judgments of the economic performance of the incumbent government or parties and issue proximity thanks to the recostruction of their map on several issues, some
of them inspired by the problems listed in the Horizon 2020 EU white paper.
2. the project intends to examine the extent to which the microfoundations of voting function are moderated by the commune level economic, social and political
characteristics. At this regards a special analysis will be dedicated to how the electoral rules affect the substantive dimensions of representation.
3. the previous analysis will be coupled with the analysis of party platforms, candidates' positions on the issue and MP's position on the same issues or their legislative
behaviours in Parliament across the entire 2013 to 2015 cycle. On this basis the project will assess the extent to which the polarisation or lack of in the party platforms
might influence some parameters of the individual voting function across different elections.
4. the project wants to focus how the media contribute to define the ranking of issues in the political agenda.
Along those analytical directions, we want to examine through an experimental
and election rules.” (Powell 2004). Powell's definition of representation nicely summarize the three dimensions of the problem this project will deal with in order to
understand to what extent the current economic and political crisis might change the working of electoral representation in the next three years electoral cycle.
As to the parties, after a 20 years long season of polarized and fragmented bipolarism, competition between main parties seems have disappeared. This change is
occurring when the economic crisis hits severely voters and it may well become a major source of change of their opinion on issues, political outlooks and perception
of parties. Weakened party competition and the state of economic can affect two dimensions of political representation.
They can blur the accountability of the incumbent government, obscuring who is responsible for what. Both previous factors can alter the substantive dimension of
representation, weakening the congruence between voters' opinion and candidates and parties platforms.
Finally even the procedural dimension of representation might change, if the current electoral rules will change. But even they will not change, it remains to be seen
how the end of coalition-based politics might interact with the electoral procedures, making more territorially variable the relation between votes and seats.
Political representation is not only constrained within a general election in which the voters are making their most thoughtful choice. It develops over the electoral
cycle. It is affected by the aggregated results of decisions of many voters and the message they want to send the government in second order elections.
It has a pre-electoral momentum and a post-electoral one. In the pre-electoral phase parties define their platforms. Candidates take issue positions. Media channel
platforms and issue positions to the voters. The second phase is centered on the interaction between parliaments and government, and the MPs becomes the key actor
of the representation linkage.
The project under review wants to analyze the political representation according to four different but highly integrated directions.
1. as to the voters' side, the project will examines their voting function not only at the Parlimentary elections but within the FOE and SOE cycle 2013-2015. The
research design will unravel the microfoundations of party choice and turnout in elections of different order, including the individual determinants of retrospective
judgments of the economic performance of the incumbent government or parties and issue proximity thanks to the recostruction of their map on several issues, some
of them inspired by the problems listed in the Horizon 2020 EU white paper.
2. the project intends to examine the extent to which the microfoundations of voting function are moderated by the commune level economic, social and political
characteristics. At this regards a special analysis will be dedicated to how the electoral rules affect the substantive dimensions of representation.
3. the previous analysis will be coupled with the analysis of party platforms, candidates' positions on the issue and MP's position on the same issues or their legislative
behaviours in Parliament across the entire 2013 to 2015 cycle. On this basis the project will assess the extent to which the polarisation or lack of in the party platforms
might influence some parameters of the individual voting function across different elections.
4. the project wants to focus how the media contribute to define the ranking of issues in the political agenda.
Along those analytical directions, we want to examine through an experimental