The Quality of Elections in Italy: A Subjective Perspective

• In Event: Identity, Elections, and Contemporary Italian Politics

Abstract

Democracy is a political system where citizens can select their rulers through electoral procedures. Thus, effective rules and institutions are necessary for the correct working of democracy. Besides these institutional prerequisites, democracy needs some attitudes and behaviors shared, at least by the most relevant political actors. Among them, the losers’ consent to accept an electoral defeat plays a key role and should be considered a necessary feature of electoral integrity.

This paper uses survey data collected by Itanes – about 4,000 cases ‒ to assess the evaluations of fairness of the 2022 Italian parliamentary election as expressed by a representative sample of citizens. First, we treat the perceptions of fairness as a dependent variable, and through a regression analysis, we research the covariates able to make sense of their distribution. Then we use the evaluations of fairness as an independent variable to shed light on its influence on citizens’ attitudes toward democracy and democratic values.

Authors

• Stefano Rombi, University of Cagliari

• Fulvio Venturino, University of Cagliari