In February 2013, just before the Italian general elections, we conducted an expert survey to estimate the political positions of Italian parties.
The questionnaire followed the well-established format developed by Michael Laver and Kenneth Benoit (see Benoit, K. and Laver, M. 2006, Party Policy in Modern Democracies, Abingdon, Routledge). A total of 379 experts on Italian politics were contacted, and 95 completed the questionnaire (a response rate of about 25%).
The survey covered the following parties: Centro Democratico, Fare per Fermare il Declino, Fratelli d’Italia, Futuro e Libertà per l’Italia, La Destra, Lega Nord, Movimento 5 Stelle, Partito Democratico, Popolo della Libertà, Rivoluzione Civile, Scelta Civica, Sinistra Ecologia Libertà, and Unione di Centro.
Experts positioned these parties on ten scales: left-right, economic policy, civil rights, deregulation, environment, decentralization, immigration, EU authority, EU responsibility, and EU neutrality.
The 2013 questionnaire and dataset are available for download upon request.