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The article investigates the voting determinants for government partners of the first populist government in Western Europe, the first Conte cabinet. Although the Five Star Movement (FSM) and the League share a common populist root, they differ in their ideological morphology: the FSM embodies an almost pure populism with inclusionary tendencies, while the League expresses an exclusionary populism clearly anchored to the Right. The article explores how populism affects voting choices for these two parties, looking at the interconnections between the thin-centred populist ideology, other host ideologies and policy preferences. We show the importance of populism as a predictor of voting choices for these two parties, as well as marked ideological differences between the two electorates. Moreover, support for the main policies of the government has been mixed, a symptom of the poor cohesion between these two parties.

Innumeracy, that is, the inability to deal with numbers and provide correct estimates about political issues, is reported to be widespread among the public. Yet, despite the recognition that a conspiracy mindset is an increasingly common phenomenon in Western democracies, this has not been considered as a potential correlate of innumeracy. Using data from an online sample of respondents across 10 European countries, we show that those with a higher propensity to hold a conspiracy worldview tend to overestimate the actual share of the immigrant population living in their own country. This association holds true when accounting for country heterogeneity and other cognitive, affective and socio-demographic factors. Employing a comparative design and refined measurements, the article contributes to our understanding of how a conspiracy mentality may influence perceptions of relevant political facts, questioning basic processes of democratic accountability. This research received financial support from the project ‘Bridging the gap between public opinion and European leadership: Engaging a dialogue on the future path of Europe EUENGAGE’ (H2020-EURO-2014-2015/H2020-EURO-SOCIETY-2014, Grant no. 649281) funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

This article explores people?s preferences for different containment strategies and policy programmes for managing COVID-19 risks. Using a survey experiment administered to an online sample of 1?562 Italian respondents in April 2020, we test whether and to what extent individual preferences are influenced by different framings of equivalent scenarios on gains and losses attached to alternative policy measures aimed at containing the health and economic costs of the pandemic. We find that subjects tend to be more risk-averse or risk-seeking depending on whether they are confronted with a positive (gain) or a negative (loss) description of the consequences of the proposed policy initiatives. The results yield relevant implications for our understanding of citizens? support for national and EU-wide responses to the coronavirus pandemic and the role of framing in contexts of crisis.

Research demonstrates the multi-dimensional nature of American identity arguing that the normative content of American identity relates to political ideologies in the United States, but the sense of belonging to the nation does not. This paper replicates that analysis and extends it to the German and British cases. Exploratory structural equation modeling attests to cross-cultural validity of measures of the sense of belonging and norms of uncritical loyalty and engagement for positive change. In the 2010s, we find partisanship and ideology in all three nations explains levels of belonging and the two content dimensions. Interestingly, those identifying with major parties of the left and right in all three countries have a higher sense of belonging and uncritical loyalty than their moderate counterparts. The relationship between partisanship, ideology, and national identity seems to wax and wane over time, presumably because elite political discourse linking party or ideology to identity varies from one political moment to the next.

This special issue focuses on EuroPolis, a unique experiment in ‘deliberative democracy’ at the European level convened in Brussels soon before the 2009 European Parliamentary Elections. A European wide random sample of the 27 member countries at the time was gathered to deliberate about two key issues--climate change and immigration as well as its voting intentions. The articles in the special issue focus on this Deliberative Poll, both quantitatively and qualitatively to assess what it tells us about ambitious versions of a ‘European wide public sphere.’ Can the citizens of Europe deliberate together across all the barriers of language and nationality? Can there be a credible process of European wide ‘public will formation’ about substantive policy issues and about voting?

Transatlantic Policymaking in an Age of Austerity: Diversity and Drift. Edited by Martin A. Levin, Martin Shapiro. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004. 344 pp., $29.95 (ISBN: 1-589-01031-0). In the literature on public policymaking, interest in explicit cross-Atlantic comparisons has been a casualty of the somewhat artificial distinction between comparative and American politics. The prevalent image has emphasized a one-way diffusion of US ideas and practices to European countries, with different degrees of absorption by the latter. Transatlantic Policymaking in an Age of Austerity tries to offer a more nuanced and complex picture of what is, in reality, a two-way street between Europe and the United States—with several turns, stops, and drifts along the way. In Transatlantic Policymaking in an Age of Austerity Martin Levin, Martin Shapiro, and their contributors explicitly compare a wide set of domestic policymaking areas in different European and North American nations. The major goal of the book is to explain how different national institutional structures on both sides of the Atlantic cope with common exogenous challenges. The book develops a story of persisting transatlantic divergences behind a facade of common challenges and apparent convergences in policy solutions. Politics, on both sides of the Atlantic, is very much “reform without change, change without reform,” as Jacob Hacker, one of the contributors, characterizes it. But, behind this general, albeit superficial, pattern, the book emphasizes the variety of divergent paths, resulting from domestic political dynamics whose rhythm is imparted by the various specific national institutions and political structures. Looking at different countries, the various chapters examine, at different levels of theoretical articulation, how national policymaking confronts common challenges in ways that are largely shaped by context-specific and path-dependent processes. The result is a quite diversified picture of policies across countries. In some areas, progressive convergence has occurred between European and US experiences. In other areas, divergence persists. In still others, a disjointed pattern in the way the policies evolve prevails. Transatlantic Policymaking in an Age of …

The US policy of ‘rebalancing to Asia’ is likely to have major implications for transatlantic relations as well as for the role of rising powers, such as China. US public opinion and leaders are largely aware of this eastward shift in attention and this awareness can be considered, albeit in a somewhat indirect way, an indicator of support for the policy. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, Europeans seem to be less aware of the fact that the Far East is becoming the main chessboard of international relations in a multipolar global order. Nevertheless, when objectively informed about China, people on both sides of the Atlantic are less in favour of a shift in interests toward Asia and their negative perceptions of China are significantly correlated to a hesitancy in supporting a rebalancing policy. Moreover, if people perceive Beijing as a threat, especially an economic threat, they are even less likely to support a shift of interests to the Far East, the only exception being American elites, who tend to increase their support for the rebalancing strategy in the presence of a Chinese economic threat.

The history of transatlantic relations makes abundantly clear that Europeans and Americans, while sharing many interests, values and views, have often also had divergent ideas on specific policies. While this is hardly disputed, several scholars and commentators further claim that, with developments such as the end of the Cold War and the growing unilateralism of American foreign policy, combined with the increasing economic assertiveness of the European Union, the nature of transatlantic relations has now fundamentally changed and that Europeans and Americans no longer share the same view of the world, whatever may have been the historical situation. This is neither the first time the death bell has been rung for the Atlantic community1 nor the only case in which assessments of the transatlantic relations run widely apart. For some observers, the ‘history of American-European relations after World War II appears to present itself as an endless series of conflicts’ (Lundestad, 2003: 3), but others take a different perspective and see the North Atlantic Area as a stable ‘zone of peace. … that sets it apart from other regions of the world and political orders of past eras’ (Ikenberry, 2008: 6–7).

A number of social sciences studies have built a "familialistic-parochial-localistic" paradigm since the early 1960s in order to characterise the Italian political culture. Such a paradigm was criticised in the last decade. This article wants to test it empirically on the basis of available opinion polls. It appears that the feeling of national identity is weak if we consider it only under its "civic" aspect (i.e. the satisfaction vis-à-vis the political system) ; once we include the idea of being part of a cultural community, then such a feeling is clearly quite more significant and Italy appears as a more "normal" nation than it usually seems., Un certain nombre de travaux de sciences sociales ont tôt mis en évidence un paradigme "familaliste-paroissial-localiste" pour caractériser la culture politique italienne. Ce paradigme a été soumis à la critique dans les années 90. Cet article se propose de le tester empiriquement sur la base des sondages disponibles. Il en ressort que le sentiment d'identité nationale italien n'est faible que si l'on le considère sous son aspect strictement civique ; si l'on inclut l'idée de faire partie d'une communauté culturelle, alors celui-ci se révèle nettement plus consistant, et l'Italie apparaît comme une nation moins "anormale" qu'il n'y paraît., Isernia Pierangelo, Pérés Hubert. Changement et continuité dans la culture politique italienne. In: Pôle Sud, n°19, 2003. L'Italie du politique, sous la direction de Christophe Roux . pp. 131-153.

Though the impact of deliberative polling on attitude change has received ample attention in the literature, micro models of attitude change before, during, and after deliberation are understudied. The relative strength of three competing views of the way attitudes change—the heuristics, systematic, and deliberative models—is assessed, using the quasi-experimental data of the EuroPolis deliberative project and comparing a group of people who participated in the deliberative poll with a control group. The results are: (1) in line with the systematic model, predispositions play a larger role than in the heuristics or deliberative models; (2) predispositions play a different role for participants and nonparticipants; (3) predispositions shape attitude formation in different ways depending on the issue at hand. On some issues the beliefs of participants change as a consequence of deliberation and become more complex and nuanced than before. This is, however, not the case for immigration issues where deliberation seems to strengthen predispositions.

IntroduzioneLa guerra contro la Repubblica Federale di Jugoslavia ha evidenziato i problemi della politica estera italiana degli anni '90. Con non più del 40% dell'opinione pubblica stabilmente a favore dei raid aerei contro la Serbia ed il Kosovo, una veemente opposizione del Vaticano e del Papa in prima persona ed una maggioranza di governo divisa al suo interno tra negoziatori ad oltranza ed auspici di una immediataescalationterrestre, si riproponeva, con maggiore evidenza del passato, il ridotto margine di autonomia dell'esecutivo nel settore della politica di sicurezza. A poco meno di due anni dalla crisi albanese, la leadership politica italiana si è trovata così ad affrontare l'ennesima prova di politica estera, per giunta sul terreno delle armi, un terreno sul quale nell'ultimo quarantennio repubblicano raramente un governo si era avventurato. Rispetto all'ambiente tut to sommato «placido» nel quale la politica estera italiana ha operato nel secondo dopoguerra, gli anni '90, con un ininterrotto susseguirsi di crisi (dal Golfo alla Somalia, dall'Albania alla Bosnia, per finire con il Kosovo) hanno prodotto un maggior numero di sfide, in aree molto più vicine e rilevanti per gli interessi nazionali italiani e in un quadro di minore possibilità di far ricorso al proprio tradizionale alleato, gli Stati Uniti, per risolvere i propri fondamentali problemi di sicurezza. Da qui la necessità di costruire un consenso nazionale intorno alle scelte del governo e, di conseguenza, il crescente interesse per il ruolo che l'opinione pubblica assume nella politica estera italiana. Il Kosovo tuttavia non è il primo caso in cui l'opinione pubblica entra nei calcoli dei decisori nazionali. In questo saggio intendiamo esplorare questo ruolo in un'altra recente crisi che ha visto coinvolta l'Italia, quella relativa al dissolvimento della ex-Jugoslavia, con particolare riferimento alla crisi in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Come diremo nelle conclusioni, da questa esperienza è possibile trarre alcune considerazioni che sembrano dimostrarsi valide anche nel caso del Kosovo.

The aggregate changes in public opinion attitudes toward foreign policy issues in three West European countries during the cold war decades (1954-1990) are analyzed. The stability hypothesis is addressed from different angles to ascertain the amount of change in public opinion attitudes toward foreign policy issues in France, Germany, and Italy. Results reveal a low level of volatility in public opinion that corresponds with the findings for the American public. On the other hand, French, German, and Italian public opinion shows a somewhat higher level of fluctuation than in the United States. Attitudes toward NATO, the United States, and the Soviet Union closely reflect the evolution of world politics and therefore represent a reasonable reaction to international events and crises.

Chapter 1 Old or New Ball Game? Mass Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War World Part 2 Part I: The Media and Foreign Policy Chapter 3 Declarations of Independence: The Growth of Media Power after the Cold War Chapter 4 Media and Public Sphere without Borders? News Coverage and Power from Kurdistan to Kosovo Chapter 5 New Issues and the Media: American and German News Coverage of the Global Warming Debate Chapter 6 Government's Little Helper: U.S. Press Coverage of Foreign Policy Crises,1946-1999 Chapter 7 Toward General Theories of the Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy Part 8 Part II: Public and Elite Attitudes after the Cold War Chapter 9 Elite Misperceptions of U.S. Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Chapter 10 To Intervene or Not to Intervene in Bosnia: That Was the Question for the United States and Europe Chapter 11 Internationalism at Bay? A Contextual Analysis of Americans' Post-Cold War Foreign Policy Attitudes Chapter 12 NATO and European Security after the Cold War: Will European Citizens Support a Common Security Policy? Chapter 13 Public Opinion after the Cold War: A Paradigm Shift Chapter 14 Public Opinion and Decisionmaking in Russia: The Impact of NATO Expansion and Airstrikes on Serbia Chapter 15 Public Attitudes after the Cold War Part 16 Part III: The Public Opinion-Foreign Policy Linkage Chapter 17 Who Leads and Who Follows? U.S. Presidents, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy Chapter 18 Public Opinion and European Integration: Permissive Consensus or Premature Politicization? Chapter 19 Constraint, Catalyst or Political Tool? The French Public and Foreign Policy Chapter 20 Where Angels Fear to Tread: Italian Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Chapter 21 Toward a Comparative Analysis of the Public Opinion-Foreign Policy Connection

The rise of a new transnational divide on immigration and Europe raises fundamental questions about the character of party competition and the causal bases of voting. Using ESS data and panel data for the Netherlands and Switzerland, we find that those who vote for political parties established on the new cleavage—green and radical TAN parties—have more structured partisan preferences than supporters of mainstream political parties. “Bridging the Gap between Public Opinion and European Leadership: Engaging a Dialogue on the Future Path of Europe – EUENGAGE’(H2020-EURO-2014–2015/H2020-EURO-SOCIETY-2014, grant no. 649281) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.