Continuity and Change in Party Positions Towards Europe in Italian Parties: An Examination of Parties’ Manifestos.

This paper analyses Italian parties? manifestos for national and European elections from 1979 to 1999 with the ?Wordscore?-programme in order to gauge whether parties positions with regard to the European Union have changed and the salience of European Union has increased. Results indicate that, although there is no sign of increased salience, the leading Italian political parties have repositioned themselves in their attitudes towards the European Union indicating that the European political space matters for national parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]