Political Traditions as Contextual Variables: Partisanship in Italy

The ‘new’ League success in the red belt and its post-fascist inheritance: evidence from 2018 National Elections

“…Since seminal studies on electoral behavior in Italy (Galli, 1968;Sani, 1976), the territory has played a crucial role in the explanation of vote choice. The strong territorial organization of the 3 .…”

“…Moreover, in addition to analyzing territorial voting dynamics in a relatively short time span, scholars also analyzed the persistence of political traditions in terms of voting patterns. By analyzing the relationship between the political tradition in the immediate post-war and the vote in 1972 at the municipality level, Sani (1976) argued that the DC had more consensus in places with a strong Catholic tradition, as well as the PCI in municipalities with a strong communist or socialist tradition. Even though the role of the political tradition has been progressively losing its prominence, Vezzoni (2008) showed continuity between the political traditions and vote in 2006 elections, especially in contexts where the DC or the PCI tradition was strong.…”

“…As pointed out by Passarelli and Tuorto (2014, 420), 'the Lega not only symbolically evoked the role of territory in its political mission but also had a geographically well-defined electoral background since its establishment': even if we consider the party's strongest performances, relevant results were always confined in northern Italian regions, roughly until Emilia-Romagna (see Passarelli and Tuorto, 2014). The Lega, indeed, never succeeded in central regions, the so-called 'red belt', which had been dominated by center-left parties since the immediate post-war period (Galli, 1968;Sani, 1976;Diamanti, 2003;Anderlini, 2007). This consolidated pattern started to change substantially with the results of 2015 regional elections.…”

Some Dynamic Effects of Contextual Partisanship: The Case of Electoral Decision in West Germany

“…A third problem or limitation of most existing studies follows from the research design that has typically been employed. Most studies have employed a cross-sectional rather than a longitudinal design and thus have been unable to determine t h e rates and direction of changes resulting from contextual influences (Sani, 1976). Yet, knowledge both of rates and direction of changes is essential to the construction of process oriented theories (Bmnner and Liepelt, 1970).…”

“…One such problem is distinguishing between a contextual effect and a case of self-selection (Hauser, 1974;Durand and Eckart, 1976); a second concerns identifying the political context relevant to individuals (Marvick and Bayes, 1969;Przeworski, 1974). Additionally most studies have employed cross-sectional rather than longitudinal research designs and thus have been unable to ascertain the rates and direction of changes induced by contextual influences (Sani, 1976).…”