1,720,967 research outputs found
The role of party preferences in explaining acceptance of freedom restrictions in a pandemic context: the Italian case
Full text linkAs a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, several governments adopted disease containment measures limiting individual freedom, especially freedom of movement. Our contribution aims at studying the role played by party preferences in explaining attitudes towards those freedom limitations during the pandemic, taking into account the moderating role played by confidence in institutions and collectivist-individualistic orientations. Focussing on Italy, as the first western democracy to be hit by Covid-19 and to adopt harsh restrictive measures, we analyse data coming from the ResPOnsE COVID-19 project. Our study initially investigates whether attitudes towards freedom restrictions are associated with the dynamics of the pandemic and the institutional responses to it. Then, through mul- tilevel regression models, we test several hypotheses about the relationship between party preferences, confidence in institutions, collectivistic orientations and public acceptance of Covid-19 containment measures limiting individual freedom. Findings show that party preferences are associated with different attitudes towards freedom restrictions to contain the pandemic, but this occurs only if people have individualistic orientations. Collectivistic orientations and confidence in institutions are positively associated with acceptance of freedom restrictions, regardless of party preferences. As regards the latter, neither a classical ideological explanation (conservative people more inclined to accept limitations to personal freedoms) nor a government-opposition explanation (supporters of government parties more inclined to accept freedom restrictions) seems to be adequate to fully account for the mechanisms behind acceptance of Covid-19 harsh containment measures. Thus, we offer an alternative ideological explanation by pointing out the ambiguous nature of contemporary right-wing populisms
L’apparente paradosso della valutazione dei due governi durante la pandemia
No full textLa pandemia da Covid-19 ha messo a dura prova i governi nazionali, costretti a ricorrere a misure mai prese in precedenza. Se molti governi in Europa hanno avuto la possibilità di prendere come riferimento, almeno nella prima fase della pandemia, le politiche implementate altrove, lo stesso non si può dire per il governo italiano. Poiché i primi casi di Covid-19 in Europa si sono registrati proprio in Italia, e conseguentemente l’emergenza è iniziata prima rispetto agli altri paesi europei, le straordinarie decisioni prese dal governo italiano in data 8 e 9 marzo 2020 con l’introduzione delle inedite misure di lockdown non potevano basarsi su situazioni analoghe nei contesti di democrazie
liberali. All’interno di questo quadro, è interessante indagare quale sia stata la valutazione dell’opinione pubblica sull’operato dei governi. Usiamo appositamente il plurale (governi) perché nell’anno della pandemia da Covid-19 l’Italia ha vissuto anche una crisi politica che si è andata ad aggiungere a quella sanitaria ed economica, portando alla caduta del governo Conte II e alla successiva nascita del governo Draghi di unità nazionale (o quasi). Infatti, come le cronache politiche
hanno raccontato con dovizia di particolari, una delle componenti della maggioranza che sosteneva il secondo governo di Giuseppe Conte, ossia Italia Viva (Iv) di Matteo Renzi, ha deciso di rompere nel gennaio 2021 con i partner di maggioranza – Movimento 5 Stelle (M5s), Partito Democratico (Pd) e Liberi e Uguali (Leu) – sul punto della governance e della definizione del Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza da presentare all’Unione Europea. Da qui poi la caduta del governo e l’arrivo a Palazzo Chigi dell’ex presidente della Banca Centrale Europea, Mario Draghi, che ha formato un esecutivo tecnico-politico con l’ingresso al governo anche dei partiti del centrodestra, con l’eccezione di Fratelli
d’Italia (FdI). Entrambi gli esecutivi, in ogni modo, hanno dovuto cimentarsi con la gestione dell’emergenza sanitaria ed economica: il governo Conte II in particolare ha dovuto gestire lo scoppio della pandemia a fine febbraio 2020, con l’adozione delle misure di lockdown nazionale (marzo-inizio maggio 2020) per frenare la diffusione dei contagi e poi la seconda ondata della pandemia nell’autunno-inverno 2020-21, con l’istituzione dell’Italia divisa in zone differenti a seconda del
livello di emergenza e l’inizio della campagna vaccinale. Ma anche il governo Draghi ha dovuto fronteggiare la nuova ondata pandemica nella primavera 2021, inasprendo le restrizioni a partire da metà marzo con l’abrogazione delle zone gialle (che prevedevano il libero spostamento all’interno della regione) e ulteriori restrizioni generalizzate a livello nazionale durante le festività pasquali ad inizio aprile 2021, per poi iniziare una fase di riapertura graduale del Paese in concomitanza con
l’avanzamento della campagna vaccinale. Tutti questi interventi hanno ovviamente impattato sulla vita delle persone, in primis sulle categorie economiche oggetto delle chiusure o restrizioni. Di conseguenza, entrambi i governi hanno dovuto occuparsi anche delle misure di sostegno economico verso le categorie più colpite e in generale di supporto a un’economia entrata in profonda recessione.
Come la dinamica di questi eventi ha impattato sulle valutazioni dell’operato dei (due) governi da parte dei cittadini italiani? E in che maniera i giudizi risentono delle opinioni politiche? Questo capitolo vuole fornire una risposta a queste domande indagando quali meccanismi possano avere influenzato il giudizio sull’operato dei governi, che negli studi elettorali è una delle cosiddette variabili di breve periodo più vicine alla decisione elettorale (Bellucci e Segatti 2010). Per capire cosa influenzi tali giudizi in un contesto emergenziale come quello attuale, evidenziamo tre possibili fattori esplicativi in base alla letteratura: 1) l’effetto rally around the flag (“stringersi intorno alla bandiera”,
si veda Mueller 1970), ossia l’emergenza e lo straordinario senso di insicurezza spingono in alto il consenso del governo al di là dell’operato effettivo di quest’ultimo; 2) la valutazione delle prestazioni (che può determinare un calo della popolarità dei governi se il giudizio è negativo o viceversa un aumento della popolarità se il giudizio è positivo, si veda Dalton, Farrell e McAllister 2011); 3) il “ciclo di popolarità dei governi” (Miller e Mackie 1973, Tufte 1975; Shugart 1995), che presuppone
un andamento ciclico della popolarità dei governi nel corso di un mandato, e quindi del sostegno da parte degli elettori dei partiti al governo.
Pertanto, nel capitolo analizzeremo come è stato valutato l’operato dei due governi (Conte e Draghi) durante l’emergenza Coronavirus e se le possibili spiegazioni di tali giudizi variano da un governo all’altro sulla base dei dati raccolti dall’indagine ResPOnsE Covid-19
Climate change in Italy: towards the politicization of an issue
Full text linkClimate change has emerged as a critical global challenge, recognized for its significant impact on the environment and societies worldwide. Nonetheless, for a long time, the Italian political system has devoted limited attention to climate change issues. Within such a framework, this article aims to answer the main research question addressed in the contributions of this special issue: is the politicization of climate change taking place in contemporary Italy? We answer this question by analyzing the three dimensions of politicization – salience, actors’ expansion, and polarization - in light of the contributions to the special issue. These studies investigate whether climate change is becoming a politicized issue by analyzing Italian parties, media, social movements, interest groups, and public opinion. Overall, the findings suggest that we are observing a partial politicization of the climate change issue in Italy. Indeed, there is evidence of an increase in salience over time in the spheres analyzed and an expansion of actors involved. Also, there are some signals of polarization, and consistent with previous research, the climate change issue largely appears positional. Nonetheless, the number of protests has substantially decreased in comparison with 2019, the approach of some actors tends to depoliticize the issue, and patterns of polarization are not unanimously detected
Political consequences of conspiratorial thinking: evidence from 2016 Italian constitutional referendum
Full text linkRecently, the literature has devoted increasing attention to beliefs in conspiracy theories. Among various aspects of the phenomenon, it was found that conspiratorial attitudes are associated with political behaviour. In Italy, previous research found that Five Star Movement and right-wing parties' voters tend to show higher levels of conspiratorial thinking than other voters. However, the relationship between conspiracism and vote choice remains obscure. By analysing an Italian panel survey data collected before and after 2016 constitutional referendum, we show that the belief in conspiracy theories is associated with referendum vote choices, even when controlling for partisan opinions, leaders’ evaluations, and perceived economic wealth. Moreover, the effect of conspiracism on referendum vote choice proves to be stronger among the supporters of the government, which promoted the referendum. This paper aims at shedding light on the processes of opinion formation and how these are affected by external attitudes, such as conspiratorial ones
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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