PRESENTATION

RESEARCH DIRECTORS: Prof. Daniela Giannetti, Prof. Andrea Pedrazzani, Prof. Luca Pinto (Coordinator)

The availability of reliable data on the positions of political parties is a fundamental prerequisite for the empirical analysis of crucial aspects of the democratic process, such as electoral competition and government formation.
To estimate party positions, various methodologies are employed, including:

  • Direct interviews with party representatives;
  • Content analysis of official documents (such as platforms and speeches);
  • Examination of parliamentary voting behavior;
  • Surveys asking selected experts to place parties along specific political dimensions.

In this context, the expert survey has long been established as a valuable tool for the scientific community. The evaluations gathered through this method are widely used both as a primary source for reliably defining party positions and as a benchmark for validating estimates obtained through other approaches.

Following the well-established expert survey methodology proposed by Michael Laver and Kenneth Benoit (see Benoit, K. & Laver, M. 2006, Party Policy in Modern Democracies, Abingdon, Routledge), six separate surveys have been conducted, each carried out in the run-up to the 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2022 general elections. In total, these surveys have allowed for the estimation of the positions of 37 political parties across nine specific policy dimensions (economic policy, civil rights, deregulation, environment, decentralization, immigration, EU authority, EU responsibility, EU defense), in addition to the traditional left–right dimension.

The expert interview methodology also enabled the estimation of the salience of these dimensions. Furthermore, the availability of multiple surveys allows for diachronic analyses of the political space, overcoming the limitations of one-off studies. Across all surveys, the average number of experts who completed the questionnaire is approximately 52.

The questionnaire and related data are available for download upon request.

Publications

  1. Di Virgilio, A., Giannetti, D., Pedrazzani, A., & Pinto, L. (2015). Party Competition in the 2013 Italian Elections: Evidence from an Expert Survey. Government and Opposition, 50(1), 65–89. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2014.15.
  2. Giannetti, D., Pedrazzani, A., & Pinto, L. (2017). Party System Change in Italy: Politicising the EU and the Rise of Eccentric Parties. South European Society and Politics, 22(1), 21–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2016.1174470.
  3. Giannetti, D., Pedrazzani, A., & Pinto, L. (2018). The rising importance of non-economic policy dimensions and the formation of the Conte government in Italy. Italian Political Science, 13(2), 27–44.
  4. Giannetti, D., Pedrazzani, A., & Pinto, L. (2022). Faraway, so close: a spatial account of the Conte I government formation in Italy, 2018. Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana Di Scienza Politica, 52(1), 83–100. https://doi.org/10.1017/ipo.2021.11.
  5. Giannetti, D., Pedrazzani, A., & Pinto, L. (2022). Lo spazio della politica. Partiti e politiche da Berlusconi ai populisti. Bologna: Il Mulino.
  6. Gambacciani, P., Giannetti, D., Pedrazzani, A., & Pinto, L. (2025). Italy’s right turn. A spatial analysis of party competition in the 2022 Italian national election the 2022 Italian national election. South European Society and Politics, 00(00), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2025.2452626.