Partisanship in Times of Crisis: Evidence from Italy

Authors

• Alexa Bankert, University of GeorgiaFollow
• Alessandro Del Ponte, Chapman UniversityFollow
• Leonie Huddy, Stony Brook University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-26-2022

Abstract

There is a continuing debate over the political importance and durability of partisan attachments in European multi-party systems. Drawing on a nationally representative five-wave panel, we provide a longitudinal test of the power of partisanship in Italy over the course of the tumultuous 2013 national elections. We find that a strong partisan affiliation measured as a social identity two years prior to the election promoted system stability by increasing support for the in-party and inhibiting electoral support for the insurgent Five Star Movement (M5S). In contrast, non-partisans, especially highly educated ones, were more likely than partisans to vote for M5S. Our results illustrate the role of partisanship in stabilizing multi-party systems amid crisis.

Comments

This article was originally published in Political Science Research and Methods, volume 11, issue 1, in 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2022.37

The associated dataset is located at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AINBOL.

Recommended Citation

Bankert, A., Del Ponte, A., & Huddy, L. (2023). Partisanship in times of crisis: Evidence from Italy. Political Science Research and Methods, 11(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2022.37

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.