Preface

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0.1 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Giuseppe Nunziata, my Data Visualization and Reporting tutor, for his availability and insightful advice.

0.2 Abstract

This report examines electoral results in Republican Italy, specifically addressing regional disparities and the longstanding divide between Northern and Southern Italy.

Inspired by the analysis of the 1946 referendum data, which revealed starkly contrasting views between Italians in the North and the South regarding the country’s most crucial institutional question - the future structure of the state - this study examines whether such differences persist today.

Drawing on electoral data from political elections spanning from 1946 to the present, the analysis investigates both voter turnout and shifts in voting preferences over time. Significant differences emerge in voting preferences, voter turnout and volatility of the vote across regions. The findings highlight the enduring of regional differences, which became more pronounced during the Second Republic and continues to shape the political landscape today.

0.3 Introduction

On March 17, 1861, the Regno d’Italia was proclaimed. That date was just the beginning of a long and tortuous unification process, which still echoes today. The phenomenon of brigandage and the harsh repression by the Italian government, which deployed the army in what was essentially a civil war, reflect the struggles that accompanied this process. Italy was reunified after more than a thousand years, bringing together parts of the country that had followed radically divergent, almost antithetical, historical paths. The phrase by Massimo d’Azeglio, “fatta l’Italia, bisogna fare gli italiani”, (“Now that Italy is made, we need to make Italians”) encapsulates the challenge of forging a single national identity amidst profound social and economic disparities.

At the end of World War II, Italy found its territory split once again: the North under the Italian Social Republic, where partisans were elading the Resistance, and the South, liberated by the Allies but devastated by inflation and disappointed by the war, feeling that they had made pointless sacrifices. Yet, despite the liberation of the entire country on April 25, true unity remained elusive. Plus, with the end of fascism Italy experinced a crisis of national identity, as for twenty years the myth of the Duce replaced the concept of a unified nation.The results of the 1946 referendum revealed two different Italys: in the North (“on this side of the Tronto”), the Republic won decisively, while in the South, the monarchy prevailed.

In this report, we delve into Italy’s Republican electoral results, aiming to understand to what extent the unification process has been achieved and whether Italy has succeeded in resolving its internal contradictions, or if significant differences still persist today.

The report is structured into three distinct chapters, each focusing on a specific phase of Italy’s political history. The first chapter -Monarchy or Republic?- delves into the pivotal events of 1946, analyzing both the results of the institutional referendum and the elections for the Constituent Assembly. The second chapter -First Republic- examines the political elections held between 1948 and 1992. The third and final chapter, Second Republic, explores the elections from 1994 up to the most recent ones in 2022.

The labels “First Republic” and “Second Republic” are actually quite inaccurate. A change in the electoral system (1993) is not sufficient to define a new political regime, as these terms might suggest. costituzione impianto istituzionale rimasero inalterati

In reality, as we will see, Italy is still undergoing an indefinite and incomplete political and institutional transition. This process marks the shift from a first party system, which dominated until the early 1990s, to a second system characterized by fragmentation and volatility.

The persistent instability, evident in frequent changes of government and fragile political alliances, is the most tangible manifestation of the ongoing transition.

Nonetheless, these expressions will be used in this work, as they are now deeply rooted in the collective imagination. Moreover, they have the great merit to help navigating the complex landscape of Italian politics.

From a mere practical perspective, this division is also more convenient, allowing for a clearer and more consistent representation of electoral data.

These chapters begin with a description of the electoral law(s), whose importance should be well born in mind. It provides essential context to better understand the rationale behind the successive data analysis. Data of elections held with different electoral laws are treated differently and the “rules of the game” of course play a significant role in shaping electoral outcomes and parties’ strategies, as they define how votes are translated into seats.

The most emblematic example is the one of the US (“The winner takes all”). Two weeks ago, Donald Trump became president for the second time after a quite clear victory, but in 2016 he won despite receiving 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in the national popular vote, due to the Electoral College system, which awards victory to the candidate who secures a relative majority in enough states to guarantee an overall majority in the Electoral College.

In the 1972 elections (the first snap elections in the history of the Italian Republic) often seen as a turning point towards the right for the Italian electorate, the left-wing parties collectively lost over a million votes in terms of parliamentary representation. This happened despite the pure proportional system, largely due to the left’s (atavistic) tendency toward fragmentation.

A similar scenario unfolded in the 2022 general elections, where the right-wing coalition’s victory was significantly boosted by its unity, in stark contrast to the divisions within the center-left. In this case, the effect of fragmentation was even more pronounced due to the mixed electoral system, which led to the dispersion of many votes in single-member districts. Here, the unified right-wing coalition easily secured numerous seats, capitalizing on the disjointed opposition.

The reader can dive into the technicalities in the paragraphs Electoral law, at the beginning of each chapter. The lazy reader can read just the green box summary and then skip to the analysis of electoral data without loss of comprehension, while to the curious ones the complete reading is suggested, since also a bit of political context is given (with an inevitable high degree of approximation).

Next, a glimpse of the various dtatasets (all sourced from Eligendo) is provided, followed by the actual data analysis. It basically consists in standardizing and merging the datasets, since most of them have a similar structure but not exactly equal, also because of the different electoral laws. I chose to analyze voting differences at the regional level, despite the higher granularity of the available data (municipal level) to avoid unnecessary complexity and noise, which would have made it difficult to identify broader voting patterns and trends. Regions provide a fair trade-off between detail and clarity, allowing for meaningful comparisons without being overwhelmed by hyper-local variations.

A shiny application is then finally provided to allow the reader to explore the evolution of voting differences between regions over time with freedom.

A Motivation paragraph at the end of each chapter explain the rationale behind the choices of the graphs used.

The last chapter (CHAPTER NAME) analyzes differences in gender gap, voter turnout and volatility of the vote across regions. (BREVE DESCRIZIONE)

P.S. I noticed the three-dataset reccomendation only after completing most of the report. Given the longitudinal nature of the chosen topic, I found it challenging to reduce the number of datasets without compromising the integrity of the analysis. To address this, I worked to harmonize and integrate the datasets into a unified analytical framework, ensuring coherence and clarity throughout the report. I apologize for not adhering completely to the project requirements.