Italy at the Polls 2022: The Right Strikes Back

Description

Italian politics has changed course yet again. Thanks to the outcome of the 2022 general election, a coalition dominated, for the first time, by a party of the far right has taken office under Giorgia Meloni, the first woman to serve as prime minister in Italy’s republican history. Italy has always been a kind of ‘political laboratory’ for Western democracies – one in which new political phenomena have developed with considerable potency. Consequently, the electoral analyses presented in this book make it possible for the reader to understand the challenges and related consequences that established democracies are currently facing, beyond Italy. Foreword The Normality of Cleavages: When Citizens Vote Against Rather Than For Bibliography Contents Notes on Contributors Abbreviations List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction: Italian Voters—Where They Have Come From and Where They Are Going 1 Introduction 2 The Never-Ending Italian Political Transition 3 From ‘Devout’ to ‘Liquid’ Voters 4 The Electoral Law(s) and the Constitutional Referendum 5 General Election 2022: In What Republic? 6 Still Uncertainty and Electoral Volatility? 7 Still a Tripolar System? 8 Protest, Populism and New Political Actors 9 From Voting to Government: A Return to the Second Republic? References 2 The Outcome: Electoral Trends and the Geopolitics of Voting 1 Introduction 2 The Parties, Electoral Coalitions and Outcomes 2.1 The Centre-Right Coalition 2.2 The Centre-Left Coalition 3 Disproportionality, Electoral Volatility and Protest Voting 4 The Electoral Geography 5 Who Voted for Whom 6 Conclusion References 3 Grappling with a Difficult Decision: How Voters Made Their Choices 1 Introduction 2 Structural Indecision 3 The Soft Underbelly of the Political Parties 4 A Less Engaging Election Campaign 5 Talking About Politics 6 The Mosaic of Sources of Information 7 Information Consumption During the Election Campaign 8 Types of Info-Consumer and Political Cultures 9 Conclusion References 4 Citizens’ Engagement with the ‘Seaside Campaign’ on Instagram and Facebook 1 Introduction 2 Posting over a ‘Seaside Election Campaign’ 3 Different Types of Engagement on Instagram and Facebook 4 An Election with No Triggering Events 5 The Main Topics and Issues on Facebook, Per Peak 6 The Main Topics and Issues on Instagram 7 Conclusion References 5 New and Old (Global) Cleavages, Crises and Wars 1 Introduction 2 Between Old and New (Global) Crises 3 The Coordinates of a (Moving) Party System 3.1 Left and Right 3.2 The Economic Malaise 3.3 The Cultural Malaise 3.4 The Democratic Malaise 3.5 Europe and Euroscepticism 4 The Impact of the ‘Two Wars’ 4.1 The Covid-19 Restrictions 4.2 The Russian Invasion of Ukraine 5 Conclusion References 6 Outside the Ballot Box: Who Is the Italian Abstainer? 1 Introduction 2 Explaining Abstention 3 The Coordinates of Non-voting in Italy 4 The Social Profile of the Italian Abstainer 5 Self-Reported Reasons 6 The Drivers of Abstention at the 2022 Election 7 Conclusions References Methodological Note The Electoral Analysis The Analysis of Citizens’ Online Engagement with the Election Campaign Index