MPs elected in 2013 Italian parliamentary elections have been selected through three main procedures: open primaries, closed primaries and exclusive methods, meaning that they have been appointed directly by the party élites or party leaders. This peculiar layout of the Italian Parliament offers the opportunity to analyse the impact on the parliamentary behavior of different selection methods within the same political context. Drawing from a large and original dataset including parliamentary behavior of all the Italian MPs elected in 2013 parliamentary elections, this article addresses the impact of candidate selection methods by focusing on the dimension of party unity. Our hypothesis is that inclusive procedures for selecting candidates may entail a low party unity degree, namely a higher MPs propensity to rebellion from party line. The analysis shows that the selection methods affect only marginally MPs parliamentary behavior and not always in the expected direction.
From a political perspective, an economic crisis is an external shock which may deeply affect the functioning of a political system. Covering the European Parliament elections from 1999 to 2014, this article analyses how and to what extent the 2008 economic crisis affected the electoral patterns in EU member states. The analysis focusses on the electoral performance of both government parties and Eurosceptic parties, before and after the outbreak of the crisis. Resorting to the economic voting theory, it addresses two questions: first, if and why electoral losses of governing parties are greater during the crisis than before; and, second, if and why Eurosceptic parties have become more prominent after the onset of the crisis. Change of unemployment rate is shown as being the most important factor explaining these trends.
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