Category: politics

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Voting between two global crises. A NUTS3-level analysis of retrospective voting in four South-European countries

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Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain went several times to the polls during the 2010–2019 decade. It was a period characterised by the strenuous effort to recover the economic situation before the onset of the Great Recession; an effort, however, often constrained by externally imposed austerity policies, and by a refugee crisis that contributed to the growing salience of the immigration issue. The article adopts an original sub-national approach to examine if and how the economic situation and the incidence of immigration affected the electoral outcomes in the four South-European countries. Adopting a theory of retrospective behaviour, the research reported in the article confirms the association between employment and immigration levels, on the one hand, and punishment of the incumbent government on the other. However, the electoral effects of immigration are conditioned by the partisan composition of the government and, under centre-right cabinets, are aggravated by a negative economic conjuncture.

Marco Giuliani (2023). Voting between two global crises. A NUTS3-level analysis of retrospective voting in four South-European countries, Italian Political Science Review, 53(1): 68–84, DOI: 10.1017/ipo.2022.9

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Twelve Votes for an Exit: Compromise and Responsiveness in the Brexit Process

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Brexit has been at the centre of the last two British elections and the past legislative term. The UK’s exit from the European Union was characterized by a series of parliamentary setbacks, with several government defeats, continuous rebellions and cross-party agreements made to secure control of the agenda. In the research reported in this article, we analyse the parliamentary Brexit process through careful examination of the 12 indicative votes held in Westminster in 2019 to find an alternative solution to Theresa May’s exit agreement. We map the choices of each MP along two relevant dimensions, connecting them to the socioeconomic structure of their constituencies as well as to the preferences expressed in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Moreover, we associate these parliamentary behaviours – and thus MPs’ attitudes towards compromise and responsiveness – to the gains and losses experienced during the subsequent 2019 general election.

Giuliani, M. (2023). Twelve Votes for an Exit: Compromise and Responsiveness in the Brexit Process. Government and Opposition. An International Journal of Comparative Politics, 58(4): 682-701. doi:10.1017/gov.2021.61

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Looking retrospectively at the 2018 Italian general election: the state of the economy and the presence of foreigners

Scholars agree that two major issues oriented voting behaviours during the Italian general election of 2018. The first was the state of the economy, which had not yet recovered from the lowest points reached during the Great Recession, but had nevertheless exhibited some marginal improvement. The second issue originated from another crisis, the refugee and asylum emergency, which contributed to increasing the presence of foreigners in Italy and the salience of the migration issue.
The article investigates the impact of these two types of problem on the 2018 election results by using aggregated objective data at the municipal level. It finds confirmation of the two issues’ impact on retrospective punishment of the incumbent Democratic Party also when using spatial regression models distinguishing the direct influence and the spill-over effects of the poor state of the economy and an increase in the size of the foreign population.

Giuliani M (2022). Looking retrospectively at the 2018 Italian general election: the state of the economy and the presence of foreigners. Contemporary Italian Politics, 14(1): 4-23, DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2021.2004640

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