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Populist parties are often argued to be very skilled in using digital media to attract supporters and strengthen linkages with their followers. However, only rarely has research shown this linkage empirically. This study explores whether arguments about the relation between digital platforms and populist voting can be substantiated using comparative survey data in France, Germany and Italy. Digital media include a variety of online platforms that can affect populist vote in different ways. This article addresses the relation between the political use of digital platforms and the populist vote. First, it looks at how the use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) and Mobile Instant Messaging Services (MIMS) is related to voting for populist parties. Second, it assesses whether the role of digital platforms is different for supporting digital 'immigrant' and digital 'native' populist parties. Third, it explores country differences in the relation between SNS and MIMS' use and the populist vote. Using original online surveys, the article shows that political activities on SNS and MIMS platforms (sending messages or posting, discussing or convincing others to vote for a candidate) increase the probability of voting for populist parties. However, it also finds that the political use of digital media is associated with the populist vote under certain (and limited) circumstances, that is only for a subset of populist parties. Finally, it identifies important differences in how SNS and MIMS are linked to the populist vote in countries presenting diverse institutional features, web regulations and constellations of media systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores changes in the relationship between attitudinal and participatory dimensions of politics, and age in Southern European countries. We look at how attitudes towards the political system and institutions combine with engagement in politics to define the ways in which citizens relate to the political sphere and the impact of the economic crisis on this relationship, in particular among the young. Using all available rounds of the European Social Survey for Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain between 2002 and 2019, this article develops a typology of citizens and analyses heterogeneities based on age, time and countries to find whether the relationship between citizens and politics has changed over time among the four states, in particular among young citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European economic crisis has stimulated a great deal of research linking contextual macroeconomic conditions and political outputs, as conventional and unconventional political participation. Nevertheless, such research has often treated forms of political participation as independent from each other, overlooking how citizens can choose from combinations of political actions to influence politics in contexts with varying levels of macroeconomic performance. This article, instead, focuses on two common forms of participation – voting and protesting – and studies whether engagement in “repertoires” of participation – the “disengaged” (abstaining and not protesting), the “duty-based” (voting and not protesting), the “protest” (abstaining and protesting), and the “all-round” (voting and protesting) repertoires – varies according to countries’ macroeconomic conditions in Europe in 30 countries over time. This article also considers that the effect of macroeconomic conditions on repertoires of participation might depend on citizens’ socioeconomic resources – such as education, employment status, and income – with consequences for participation gaps or inequalities. Using multilevel models and data from seven rounds of the European Social Survey, this article shows that in contexts where macroeconomic conditions are worse, the probability of engaging in the “protest” repertoire increases, while the probability of engaging in the other three repertoires does not depend on the economy. In addition, the article finds that participation gaps narrow in the “disengaged” and “duty-based” repertoires in contexts with poorer macroeconomic performance, while the gaps in the “protest” and “all-round” repertoires do not change across contexts with different economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of a three-year research project comparing social media and political participation across the European Union, we collected data on representative samples of internet users from Germany, Italy and the UK. Online users were surveyed just after the May 2014 European elections. The three countries have been selected as they differ not only in terms of institutional features but also in terms of the character of their media systems: ‘liberal’ in the UK, ‘democratic-corporatist’ in Germany and ‘polarized pluralist’ in Italy. Although previous studies have not put into direct relationship media systems with participatory patterns, we hypothesized that different types of media ecologies may generate peculiar incentives for non-institutional participation. Taking such differences into account, our paper sheds light on the linkage between digital media and unconventional participation across the three countries. Our hypothesis is that distinct news diets and different social media platforms may influence non-institutional participation in specific ways that reflect varying contextual characteristics. We assess the role of different news diets on unconventional participation, distinguishing our respondents according to their main sources of information (occasional, traditional univores, digital univores and omnivores). We then consider the association between the use of different social media (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) and non-institutional participation. Finally, we take into account the indirect effect of national contexts by running interaction models. Our findings show that news diets and social media use matter in the three countries, but that substantial differences are hard to find across them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article assesses the patterns of political participation of different cohorts in two forms of conventional political participation, attending political parties meetings and donating money to political parties, and in two forms of unconventional political participation, attending meetings of environmental, peace and civil rights associations and attending demonstrations, in Italy. To test the claim that the younger cohorts are less politically involved the article uses Bayesian cross-classified mixed models and repeated survey data collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics between 1993 and 2012. It is found that the conventional forms of participation are more widespread among 'baby-boomers' than among the younger cohorts. Conversely, unconventional forms are increasingly popular in the cohorts born after the 1950s, particularly in the younger ones. The results show that the idea of the Italian younger cohorts as being apathetic and detached from the political sphere may be incorrect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although family ties are very important to understand political socialization, few studies have focused on the transmission of political and social participation from parents to children. By using the Multiscopo survey Aspetti della vita quotidiana (Istat), this article investigates the association between parents and children's political and social participation, with particular attention to gender and regional differences. Multilevel models indicate, first of all, the presence of regional differences in the levels of participation and, secondly, a strong tendency of intra-familiar political and social co-participation. In other words, sons and daughters have higher probabilities of being politically and socially active when both parents are active as well, regardless of their region of residence. Moreover, analyzing the children's behavior compared to their mothers and fathers' separately we find that mothers' participation has a stronger effect than fathers'. This difference in the effect of parents' participation is indeed small, yet geographically homogeneous. Put differently, having a politically and socially active mother increases the probability of children's participation more than having a politically and socially active father in all Italian regions. This result is particularly interesting in the Italian context where mothers are largely absent in the public sphere while they play a very important role within households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the relationship between the political participation of parents and children in Italy, a country for which no empirical evidence on the topic is available and that has particular characteristics in terms of household dynamics and patterns of political participation. The analyses are based on a sample of 12,802 children from 14 to 19 years old and their parents, drawn from the “Multipurpose survey – Aspects of daily life”, collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics. The results show that the political participation of children is strongly associated with that of their parents; that maternal participation is of somewhat greater relevance to the participation of both sons and daughters compared to that of fathers; and that the parents’ level of education is not associated with the likelihood of the child participating, net of parental participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protest politics is often linked to political dissatisfaction. However, much of the literature on political protest overlooks the fact that dissatisfaction originates within the political system, and therefore may depend on it. In this article, we argue that citizens who are dissatisfied with the political system are more likely to join protest actions because they have a greater incentive to change the current political situation. Moreover, we argue that the likelihood of joining protest actions also depends on the characteristics of the existing party systems. We believe that, in contexts where parties cannot serve as linkages between civil society and political institutions, dissatisfaction may be a further motivational mechanism for joining political protests. Using multilevel models and the European Value Study, we find that citizens participating in political protest activities show, on average, higher levels of political dissatisfaction, that their participation in political protests depends on the characteristics of the party systems and that, overall, the association between dissatisfaction and protest varies according to the characteristics of the party systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political participation is deemed to be a fundamental component of democratic regimes. The literature on political participation has shown that some social groups of citizens tend to be less involved in politics than other social groups, and the consequence is that the interests of these specific groups of less involved citizens are underrepresented in the political process. Given the increasing popularity of non-violent protest in contemporary democracies, it is important to understand whether political inequalities are present in this form of political engagement. In this article, we argue that non-violent protest may present inequalities, that examining the consequences of public social spending can help in understanding the cross-national differences in the levels of non-violent political protest, and that political inequalities in non-violent protest may vary according to public social spending. We test our argument using sources that include the European Values Study (1980–2009), multilevel models, and contextual data provided by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors claim that political protest is ‘normal’ in contemporary democracies, which are, therefore, ‘social movement societies’. This article analyses the Italian case, showing that there has been an expansion and a gradual institutionalisation of political protest, but it also tests whether there has been a ‘normalisation’ of the protester. It is argued that in a ‘social movement society’ protesters are more heterogeneous than in the past. Using survey data spanning over 30 years we find that the association between several individual characteristics and participation in political protest weakens or disappears. However, complete normalisation of the protester has yet to be completed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although family ties are very important to understand political socialization, few studies have focused on the transmission of political and social participation from parents to children. By using the Multiscopo survey Aspetti della vita quotidiana (Istat), this article investigates the association between parents and children's political and social participation, with particular attention to gender and regional differences. Multilevel models indicate, first of all, the presence of regional differences in the levels of participation and, secondly, a strong tendency of intra-familiar political and social co-participation. In other words, sons and daughters have higher probabilities of being politically and socially active when both parents are active as well, regardless of their region of residence. Moreover, analyzing the children's behavior compared to their mothers and fathers' separately we find that mothers' participation has a stronger effect than fathers'. This difference in the effect of parents' participation is indeed small, yet geographically homogeneous. Put differently, having a politically and socially active mother increases the probability of children's participation more than having a politically and socially active father in all Italian regions. This result is particularly interesting in the Italian context where mothers are largely absent in the public sphere while they play a very important role within households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]