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Spatial analysis of economic and social determinants of vote: the case of the European Parliament and constitutional referendum votes in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2019

Francesco Giovanni Truglia  and
Alessandro Zeli Open the ORCID record for Alessandro Zeli [Opens in a new window]
Francesco Giovanni Truglia
Affiliation:
Istat – Territorial Networks dpt., Viale Oceano Pacifico, 171, Rome, Italy
Alessandro Zeli*
Affiliation:
Istat – Division for Data Analysis and Economic, Social and Environmental Research, Viale Liegi, 13, Rome, Italy
*
*Corresponding author. Email: zeli@istat.it
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Abstract

The 2014 European Parliament election and the 2016 Constitutional Referendum in Italy occurred in the middle of two general elections. These votes, taking place respectively at the beginning and the end of the government led by Matteo Renzi of the Democratic Party (PD), represented a public test of the PD leadership. The election results were diverse in many respects, but they replicate social, economic, political, and cultural differences. In particular, between the two electoral exercises the differential electoral behaviour of South compared with the rest of the country is deepened. Moreover, the results can be interpreted as the outcome of differences in age, educational levels, social, and economic unrest; all these variables are synthesized by the territorial distribution of the vote and this helps in interpreting the evolution of political sentiment in Italy. A spatial statistics methodology is utilized to analyse votes by means of their territorial distributions. The outcomes indicate that referendum result was influenced by the economic vote. Apart from the substance of the constitutional reform, the referendum result can be traced back to economic factors: the absence of perceived economic improvements and the persistence of high unemployment.

Keywords

electionsItalypolitical economypolitical partiesvoting behaviour
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , July 2020 , pp. 173 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2019

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