Tag: italy

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Complying with Anti-COVID Policies. Subnational Variations and their Correlates

Italy was the first European country to be hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, experimenting and fine-tuning its policies against the virus. In November 2020, the Italian government introduced a color-coding system, adapting its constraining measures to the local epidemiological situation. 

In this research note, I first use mobility data to check the effects of this policy, and then analyse their geographical variation for similar levels of constraint as a proxy for its local enforcement. Finally, I explore some ex-ante and ex-post correlates of greater or lesser adherence to the mobility constraints in regard to the further spread of the virus. Contrary to some stereotypes, the level of compliance with the new anti-COVID policy was reasonably high, and in any case sufficient to curb the pandemic.

Marco Giuliani (2022) Complying with Anti-COVID Policies. Subnational Variations and their Correlates. Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, 2: 241-268, DOI: 10.1483/104976

 

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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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Retrospective voting in the Italian 2013 election: a sub-national perspective

Italian political science review (2017)

The Italian 2013 election ended the period of bipolarism that characterized the so-called ‘Second Republic’, and paved the way for new parties such as the Five Star Movement.
We investigate that election, which took place after the technocratic government led by Mario Monti, through the analytical lenses of the retrospective theory of economic voting applied at the provincial level. Local unemployment rates shape the electoral performances
of those parties that were more supportive and sympathetic to the caretaker executive, thus confirming a distinction between incumbent and non-incumbent even in that critical and politically undecided election. We further contribute to the literature on retrospective voting by relaxing the locally untenable assumption of independence among the units. Making use of spatial regression models, we demonstrate the relevance of both the internal  and contiguous economies, and their relative impact due to the different size of the provinces.

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