Intra-party groups influence parties’ policy priorities. However, scholars have yet to map the pa... more Intra-party groups influence parties’ policy priorities. However, scholars have yet to map the pathways with the greatest impact. We argue that party congresses serve as venues for decision-making, allowing speeches and motions to support differing priorities. Considering parties’ internal process, we propose that deliberations and alternate motions independently affect resulting policy statements. We examine this perspective focusing on meetings of the French Socialist Party. We use Structural Topic Models to analyze the issues included in 74 motions, 1439 speeches and 9 manifestos from congresses held between 1969 and 2015 to evaluate whether factional motions or individual speeches better reflect the content of manifestos and to assess the internal agenda-setting process. Results suggest that motions better predict the content of parties’ manifestos. However, when focusing solely on majority faction, we find that both motions and speeches predict manifestos’ contents. This supports a theory of intra-party decision-making and factional dominance.
ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democ... more ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democracy. Internet, in turn, can wield effects on democracy and many scholars have investigated such relationship. Moving from this literature we use Eurobarometer data to estimate the effect of Internet on the satisfaction with the functioning of democracy among European citizens. The results show that Internet usage, per se, has no effect on the satisfaction with democracy. However, the consumption of online news can make the difference, even though this effect is positive when users consume news from online traditional media while social media has a negative effect, which is mediated by the level of online disagreement and the potential emergence of flames.
ABSTRACT Several scholars investigate the link between news media and political attitudes of citi... more ABSTRACT Several scholars investigate the link between news media and political attitudes of citizens, showing that media exposure affects confidence in political institutions. Beginning from this perspective, we analyze trust in government in twenty-seven European countries, testing the interactive relationship between citizens’ policy views and media slant. Under the assumption that news media bias content in the direction of their audiences or are compliant with potential influence exerted by the government, we use Eurobarometer survey data to measure the effects of the ideological slant of newspapers and public television on trust in government. Our results show that the pro- or antigovernment slant of media outlets interacts with the individual ideological views of each citizen and confirm that media act like “echo-chambers” that reinforce preexisting attitudes. Conversely, the consumption of counter-attitudinal information barely alters trust in government nor does it produce hostile media effects. We also find a slight difference between newspaper readers and public service broadcaster (PSB) users, which seems related to mechanisms of cognitive dissonance.
ABSTRACT Scholars agree that ideology affects judicial decision-making. We demonstrate that this ... more ABSTRACT Scholars agree that ideology affects judicial decision-making. We demonstrate that this proposition holds true even when the judiciary is independent of political control. Focusing on Italy (1983-2013), where the politicisation of the judiciary was an issue well before the entry of Berlusconi into politics, we estimate judicial orientations according to the support for factions within the National Judiciary Association. The results show that ideology affects trial court activity against deputies. As the support for left-wing factions increases, prosecutors are more likely to investigate right-wing parties. Conversely, as the share of right-leaning factions grows, investigations of moderate or rightist parties decrease.
ABSTRACT Recent studies investigated the effect of e-campaigning on the electoral performance. Ho... more ABSTRACT Recent studies investigated the effect of e-campaigning on the electoral performance. However, little attention has been paid to the content of e-campaigning. Given that political parties broadcast minute-by-minute the campaign messages on social media, this comprehensive and unmediated information can be useful to evaluate the impact of different electoral strategies. Accordingly, this article examines the electoral campaign for the 2013 Italian general election to assess the effectiveness of positive and negative campaigning messages, measured through content analysis of information published on the official Twitter accounts of Italian parties. We evaluate their impact on the share of unsolicited voting intentions expressed on Twitter, measured through an innovative technique of sentiment analysis. Our results show that negative campaign has positive effects and its impact is stronger when the attacker is meanwhile under attack. Conversely, we only find a circumstantial effect of positive campaign related to clientelistic and distributive appeals.
ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democ... more ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democracy. Internet, in turn, can wield effects on democracy and many scholars have investigated such relationship. Moving from this literature we use Eurobarometer data to estimate the effect of Internet on the satisfaction with the functioning of democracy among European citizens. The results show that Internet usage, per se, has no effect on the satisfaction with democracy. However, the consumption of online news can make the difference, even though this effect is positive when users consume news from online traditional media while social media has a negative effect, which is mediated by the level of online disagreement and the potential emergence of flames.
Intra-party groups influence parties’ policy priorities. However, scholars have yet to map the pa... more Intra-party groups influence parties’ policy priorities. However, scholars have yet to map the pathways with the greatest impact. We argue that party congresses serve as venues for decision-making, allowing speeches and motions to support differing priorities. Considering parties’ internal process, we propose that deliberations and alternate motions independently affect resulting policy statements. We examine this perspective focusing on meetings of the French Socialist Party. We use Structural Topic Models to analyze the issues included in 74 motions, 1439 speeches and 9 manifestos from congresses held between 1969 and 2015 to evaluate whether factional motions or individual speeches better reflect the content of manifestos and to assess the internal agenda-setting process. Results suggest that motions better predict the content of parties’ manifestos. However, when focusing solely on majority faction, we find that both motions and speeches predict manifestos’ contents. This supports a theory of intra-party decision-making and factional dominance.
ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democ... more ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democracy. Internet, in turn, can wield effects on democracy and many scholars have investigated such relationship. Moving from this literature we use Eurobarometer data to estimate the effect of Internet on the satisfaction with the functioning of democracy among European citizens. The results show that Internet usage, per se, has no effect on the satisfaction with democracy. However, the consumption of online news can make the difference, even though this effect is positive when users consume news from online traditional media while social media has a negative effect, which is mediated by the level of online disagreement and the potential emergence of flames.
ABSTRACT Several scholars investigate the link between news media and political attitudes of citi... more ABSTRACT Several scholars investigate the link between news media and political attitudes of citizens, showing that media exposure affects confidence in political institutions. Beginning from this perspective, we analyze trust in government in twenty-seven European countries, testing the interactive relationship between citizens’ policy views and media slant. Under the assumption that news media bias content in the direction of their audiences or are compliant with potential influence exerted by the government, we use Eurobarometer survey data to measure the effects of the ideological slant of newspapers and public television on trust in government. Our results show that the pro- or antigovernment slant of media outlets interacts with the individual ideological views of each citizen and confirm that media act like “echo-chambers” that reinforce preexisting attitudes. Conversely, the consumption of counter-attitudinal information barely alters trust in government nor does it produce hostile media effects. We also find a slight difference between newspaper readers and public service broadcaster (PSB) users, which seems related to mechanisms of cognitive dissonance.
ABSTRACT Scholars agree that ideology affects judicial decision-making. We demonstrate that this ... more ABSTRACT Scholars agree that ideology affects judicial decision-making. We demonstrate that this proposition holds true even when the judiciary is independent of political control. Focusing on Italy (1983-2013), where the politicisation of the judiciary was an issue well before the entry of Berlusconi into politics, we estimate judicial orientations according to the support for factions within the National Judiciary Association. The results show that ideology affects trial court activity against deputies. As the support for left-wing factions increases, prosecutors are more likely to investigate right-wing parties. Conversely, as the share of right-leaning factions grows, investigations of moderate or rightist parties decrease.
ABSTRACT Recent studies investigated the effect of e-campaigning on the electoral performance. Ho... more ABSTRACT Recent studies investigated the effect of e-campaigning on the electoral performance. However, little attention has been paid to the content of e-campaigning. Given that political parties broadcast minute-by-minute the campaign messages on social media, this comprehensive and unmediated information can be useful to evaluate the impact of different electoral strategies. Accordingly, this article examines the electoral campaign for the 2013 Italian general election to assess the effectiveness of positive and negative campaigning messages, measured through content analysis of information published on the official Twitter accounts of Italian parties. We evaluate their impact on the share of unsolicited voting intentions expressed on Twitter, measured through an innovative technique of sentiment analysis. Our results show that negative campaign has positive effects and its impact is stronger when the attacker is meanwhile under attack. Conversely, we only find a circumstantial effect of positive campaign related to clientelistic and distributive appeals.
ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democ... more ABSTRACT Media plays an important role in defining the quality of democracy in consolidated democracy. Internet, in turn, can wield effects on democracy and many scholars have investigated such relationship. Moving from this literature we use Eurobarometer data to estimate the effect of Internet on the satisfaction with the functioning of democracy among European citizens. The results show that Internet usage, per se, has no effect on the satisfaction with democracy. However, the consumption of online news can make the difference, even though this effect is positive when users consume news from online traditional media while social media has a negative effect, which is mediated by the level of online disagreement and the potential emergence of flames.
Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, Dec 21, 2015
This paper demonstrates that, in a «Big Data» world, comments of social media users can be used t... more This paper demonstrates that, in a «Big Data» world, comments of social media users can be used to support the action of policy-makers across all the steps of the policy cycle. It applies a modern technique of Supervised Aggregated Sentiment Analysis to three public policies introduced in Italy from 2012 to 2014: the abolishment of the public funding of political parties, the «jobs act» labour market reform and the «80 euros tax bonus». Results show that social media analysis can help policy-makers to accomplish the following tasks: 1) developing synthetic indicators that serve as «fire alarms» on relevant topics; 2) rating the available policy alternatives according to citizens’ preferences; 3) monitoring citizens’ behaviours and opinions during the implementation of a public policy.
The article sheds light on two missing links in the existing literature on government’s policy pr... more The article sheds light on two missing links in the existing literature on government’s policy preferences and policy choices, namely the roles played by party factions and trade unions as political actors able to affect government’s decision-making power. The content analysis of a wide typology of documents (i.e., investiture speeches, parliamentary debates, motions discussed during parties’ and trade unions’ congresses) allows to locate cabinets, parties, party factions and trade unions on a common pro-state/pro-market scale. Using these new data sources, we perform a multivariate time-series analysis to estimate the relative impact of those political actors on social expenditure in Italy throughout its modern history (1946–2015). The results support the idea that intra-party dynamics and trade unions’ preferences do matter. Indeed, government’s ability to retrench the welfare state vanishes when the Prime Minister’s party is highly polarized internally and when trade unions are more cohesive.
The paper investigates party-union relationships in Italy (1946–2014) by hand-coding parties’ par... more The paper investigates party-union relationships in Italy (1946–2014) by hand-coding parties’ parliamentary speeches and trade unions’ congress motions. In line with the cartel party thesis, a time series analysis shows that the ideological closeness between the leftwing Italian General Confederation of Labour and left-wing parties deteriorated when the Italian Socialist Party (1980) and the heirs of the Italian Communist Party (1998) converged toward the centre of the ideological spectrum. Conversely, the closeness between the Catholic-inspired Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions and the heirs of Christian Democracy increased after 1994, when the former party’s leftist factions became the major part of the Italian Popular Party.
Why does the government appeal for concertation? Starting from the principal-agent framework and ... more Why does the government appeal for concertation? Starting from the principal-agent framework and delegation theory, we argue that the government is more willing to share decision-making power with trade unions when the policy preferences endorsed by the unions are closer to those retained by the cabinet. Furthermore, we argue that government propensity to negotiate with trade unions increases as the heterogeneity of union policy preferences grows because the cabinet can exploit its agenda-setting power to divide the union front. We test these two hypotheses performing a longitudinal analysis of the Italian case (1946-2014) and employing two original datasets built through content analysis. These datasets provide unique in-depth information on the policy preferences of key political actors, such as parties and cabinets, but they also measure the policy positions of the main Italian trade unions, thus allowing to assess their degree of heterogeneity. The results confirm our expectations.
This paper addresses the potential role that social media analysis can play in promoting the inte... more This paper addresses the potential role that social media analysis can play in promoting the interaction between politicians, bureaucrats and citizens. We show that, in a “Big Data” world, the comments freely posted online by social media users can be profitably used to extract meaningful information, able to support the action of policy-makers along the policy cycle. For this purpose, we analyse Twitter data through a modern technique of Supervised Aggregated Sentiment Analysis. In particular, we develop two case studies related to the “jobs act” labour market reform and to the “#labuonascuola” school reform, both formulated and implemented by the Italian Renzi cabinet in 2014-2015. Our results demonstrate that social media data can help policy-makers 1. to rate the available policy alternatives according to citizens’ preferences during the formulation phase of a public policy; 2. to monitor citizens’ opinions during the implementation phase of a public policy and 3. to catch stakeholders’ mobilization and de-mobilization processes. We argue that, although social media analysis cannot replace other research methods, it provides a fast and cheap stream of information that can supplement traditional analyses, enhancing responsiveness and institutional learning.
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