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In many respects, Italy – a founding member of the EU and once one of its most pro-European countries – may well represent today a privileged observation point for the study of the electoral behaviour of Eurosceptic voters. In the article, we look for evidence about a Eurosceptical match between the demand and the supply sides of the Italian electoral process. For this purpose, through use of data collected by the Itanes 2018 national election survey, we analyse whether it is possible to find a relationship between Eurosceptical attitudes among voters and their vote choice for Eurosceptic parties. We hypothesise that those citizens who have turned their back on the EU rejecting its intervention and who prioritise instead defence of national sovereignty have a greater propensity to vote for Eurosceptic parties. Results confirm our hypothesis showing that, in a context of growing disenchantment of Italian public opinion toward the EU, Eurosceptic voters increasingly mobilised in support of those parties that have made great efforts in the past to politicise EU issues and to establish their ownership on Euroscepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent history of European politics has been characterised by the mounting phenomena of populism and Euroscepticism. Some recent analyses discuss the possible convergence between the two, exemplified, above all, by the increased success of Eurosceptic and populist parties. Conceptually and historically, Euroscepticism and populism are two distinct ideological realms. To what extent do they develop in parallel or converge, both at the elite and mass levels? We address this question by looking at the Italian case, where populism and Euroscepticism have apparently progressed simultaneously. Through an analysis of the attitudes of political elites and the public, we argue that the two phenomena actually move in parallel and in general do not converge, with the main exception of the Five Star Movement where a convergence is instead visible. Finally, by observing the effects of Euroscepticism and populism on the voting choices of citizens, we find a high level of congruence in the political system between demand and supply, hence between voters and their representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the factors explaining voting in the 2016 Italian referendum on constitutional reform. As we show through voting alignments within the Parliament and key aspects of the electoral campaign, this was a case where the government took the leadership of the entire referendum process, transforming it into a plebiscite. Within this context, we hypothesize that key elements explaining voting choices follow a government-support vs. opposition dynamics. Employing Italian National Elections Studies Association pre/post-referendum survey, we estimate the effects of factors increasing predictability (e.g. party closeness, ideology, social cleavage) or uncertainty (e.g. government performance, the economy) of voting choices. The resulting logistic regression models show that the leading role of the government in the referendum reshapes the impact of factors explaining voting choices. While some lose significance, others follow a pro- or anti-government logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent past, attitudes towards the EU have become problematic in many member states. Even those countries that traditionally were more optimistic have actually experienced important declines in their popular backing of the European integration process. We examine the public attitudes towards the EU that have recently emerged in Italy, a country where support for EU membership has declined substantially. Making use of recent data and novel research techniques, the article sheds light on the explanatory power of different theoretical perspectives to explain these attitudes. Utilitarianism has emerged as the key explanatory factor, whereas other theories appear much less relevant in the Italian context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the fortunes of the recently created Five Star Movement, a party that at its first general election in February 2013 became the most voted for party in Italy. It explains the success of this new party through citizens’ demands, patterns of party competition and institutional rules. Building on the interplay between popular demands and party supply, the study examines the overall political stance of this party and how it fits the policy priorities of citizens. By comparing it with other parties, the article investigates how the Five Star Movement distinguished itself from its competitors. Finally, the article examines how the electoral system has limited its emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses the nature of Italian political parties' attitudes towards the EU. Three main dimensions of the EU process and of its impact on the member states are focused upon: identity, representation and scope of governance. We document how these three dimensions structure the programmatic offer on the EU of the party system and how this structure has changed over time. Then, we analyse the preferences of the individual parties along these three dimensions so as to document their attitudes toward the EU. Finally, we conclude by explaining the attitudes of the Italian parties in the light of the main theoretical arguments available in the literature. The analysis shows that the Italian case has over-stepped the exceptional consensus on the EU that emerged in the country by the end of the 1980s, and has joined the typical pattern of competition on the EU that opposes the centre-left to the centre-right and, less intensely than elsewhere, moderate to radical parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the concept of democracy support by focusing on a few conceptual aspects. In past research, some scholars have limited their study to particular aspects, for example, the «satisfaction with democracy», while others have used only indicators relative to the legitimacy of democracy. In this research, studying concepts such as those above within an Italian context, we analyze the dimensions of democracy support from both synchronic and diachronic viewpoints following Eastons' conceptualization. The principal results show that the dimensions of Italian democracy support are in line with Easton's conceptualization. They are characterized by five dimensions; each one is representative of a specific aspect of democracy support. Adopting bivariate and multivariate analyses, this work demonstrates that in Italy, support for democracy has increased over time, both in terms of «diffuse» and «specific» support. Despite this trend, dissatisfaction with the political class among Italian citizens has increased, confirming a gap between citizens and politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]