Twitter as a mirror of political space(s): An analysis of multi-level party competition in Italy

The literature on the nationalization of party systems has found that decentralization of authority leads to increasing territorial heterogeneity of voting behaviour. In this article, we intend to further extant knowledge on this topic by exploring whether different levels of government imply distin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Regional & federal studies Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 235 - 257
Main Authors: Camatarri, Stefano, Gallina, Marta, Anselmi, Guido, Schadee, Henri M. A., Segatti, Paolo
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Routledge 15.03.2023
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Subjects:
Humanities and Social Sciences
Italy
multi-level party competition
Political spaces
regional elections
Twitter data
Italy
Political spaces
Twitter data
party competition
Regional elections
ISSN:1359-7566, 1743-9434
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The literature on the nationalization of party systems has found that decentralization of authority leads to increasing territorial heterogeneity of voting behaviour. In this article, we intend to further extant knowledge on this topic by exploring whether different levels of government imply distinct representations of party competition at the citizens' level. We do so by analysing Twitter data collected during the 2015 regional elections in five Italian regions (Liguria, Veneto, Tuscany, Campania and Apulia) to estimate national and regional party configurations by means of multi-dimensional scaling. Analyses show that national party competition is generally perceived in the same way across regions, but representations of regional political spaces tend to stand out from it and also to differ from each other. These results suggest that, in line with the process of political decentralization of authority, voters perceive party competition in different ways according to the level of territorial governance at stake.
ISSN:1359-7566
1743-9434
DOI:10.1080/13597566.2021.1954913