169,917 research outputs found
Diffusion Processes and Discussion Networks : an Analysis of the Propensity to Vote for the 5 Star Movement in the 2013 Italian Election
No full textLocal and national effects in the electoral cycle : the case of Italy (2001–2009)
No full textLocal and national effects in the electoral cycle: the case of Italy, 2001–2009. Territory, Politics, Governance. According to electoral cycle theory, in second-order elections small parties are expected to improve their performance, while big parties are expected to be punished. This paper formally tests whether these electoral cycle effects can be considered as solely national in nature or whether they vary at the local level. It tests the expectations in Northern Italy in two electoral cycles (2001–2004 and 2008–2009), with special reference to Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia/PdL and the smaller ally, Lega Nord. The paper analyses electoral outcomes at the municipality level with spatial analysis techniques (Moran’s I and spatial autoregressive model), showing that parties’ support seems to follow a local electoral cycle, partly independent from the aggregate one
“Blood Is Thicker Than Water” : Interpersonal Influence, Selection, and the Role of Family in Forging Italians’ Political Agreement
No full textMechanisms that are known to forge political agreement include interpersonal influence—the process by which people change their ideas according to others’ attitudes—and selection—people’s choice of their discussants according to their discussants’ preferences. Using data obtained from a longitudinal survey, we test how these two processes contribute to changing vote choices or discussants around the 2014 European elections in Italy. Results partly confirm findings from the previous literature, showing influence and selection effects. Moreover, it is suggested that the family contributes crucially in stimulating strategies that result in political agreement. Propensities to maintain agreeable discussants over time and to change voting choice are boosted by exposure to family members
Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIM) and Voting Behavior: Methodology and Applications
No full textRecently, the social sciences have witnessed a rising interest in dyadic design, as an efficient way to disentangle mechanisms of interpersonal influence. Despite the relevance of this design to political research, few efforts have been made to collect and efficiently analyze dyadic data. In this article, we suggest the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model as a useful tool to test bidirectional effects in dyadic data on political attitudes and behaviors. The model explicitly assumes that members of a dyad (reciprocally identified as actor and partner) involved in political communication are interdependent and influence each other. We apply the model to estimate the effect of partner's party identification on actor's vote choice, using 1996 Indianapolis–St. Louis dyadic data. Results show that partner's party identification is significantly associated with vote choice. Moreover, we show that influence between dyad members is moderated by their intimacy and that an increased difference in socioeconomic status between dyad members tips the balance of the effect in favor of the individual with more resources. Our conclusions point to the effectiveness of APIM in modeling interdependent asymmetric relations and call for increasing efforts in collecting dyadic data and in developing proper tools for their analysis
Spatial distribution of the beta extremity doses in nuclear medicine : a feasibility study with thin alfa-Al2O3:C TLDs
No full textExposures to the extremities have increased due to new therapeutic protocols involving beta sources. In this study, thermoluminescent dosimeters based on alpha-Al(2)O(3):C were used to map the dose distribution to the extremities of physicians and paramedical personnel handling beta emitters. The results showed a strong inhomogeneous dose distribution between different phalanxes, fingers and hands of all the investigated subjects, without an indication of systematic trends in the dose patterns. Consequently, conventional dosimetric practices, based on the use of wrist or ring dosimeters, may be not suitable for providing reliable assessments of the inhomogeneous doses received at the fingertip
Believing in Conspiracy Theories : Evidence from an Exploratory Analysis of Italian Survey Data
No full textBeliefs in conspiracy theories have attracted significant international media attention in recent years. This phenomenon has been studied in the US but while anecdotal evidence suggests it is also widespread among the Italian public, little evidence has been collected to assess it empirically. Using data from a 2016 survey, this pioneering study of the Italian case investigates the extent of diffusion of conspiracy theories among Italians and tests several hypotheses concerning individual determinants. The paper finds that conspiracism is indeed widely diffused in Italy. It is negatively associated with education and positively with religiosity, while no correlation is found with political trust. Beliefs in conspiracies are also related to rightwing orientation and support for the populist Five Star Movement
Hai veramente letto la domanda? Valutazione della qualità delle risposte nelle survey online attraverso domande screener
No full textNelle survey online, per rispondere alla mancanza di controllo sull’intervistato,
si è diffuso l’utilizzo di domande screener per valutare l’attenzione che i soggetti
pongono nel rispondere al questionario. Per superare con successo una domanda screener,
un intervistato deve seguire istruzioni inserite all’interno di un testo che contiene
una quantità variabile di informazioni di disturbo. Mediante un esperimento effettuato
in una survey online nell’ambito dell’Italian National Election Study con dati raccolti
nel 2015 su un campione di 3.000 individui, si rileva come una larga parte degli intervistati
(≥ 50%) non ponga adeguata attenzione al testo delle domande, soprattutto se
il testo è lungo e complesso. Gli screener si dimostrano efficaci nel valutare la qualità
degli intervistati soprattutto se il carico cognitivo che viene richiesto per superare la
prova è basso
Electoral Participation, Disagreement, and Diversity in Social Networks: A Matter of Intimacy?
No full textGeneral consensus concerning the nature of the relationship between political disagreement and turnout has not yet been reached: while several studies have demonstrated the demobilizing effect of disagreement, others have found no significant evidence for this. Recently, scholars have argued that diversity — a situation in which some people are in agreement with ego and some are not — can boost electoral participation. The present article argues that the insights of previous studies are the result of two differentiated effects that depend on the level of intimacy of the discussants to which one is exposed. By employing a set of linear regression models on Italian National Election Study 2013 pre-electoral survey (N > 8,000), we show that mixed political views among friends boost electoral participation. For what concerns relatives, the likelihood to vote decreases linearly with increasing disagreement
Escrituras bilingües indígenas y autotraducción. Conversación con Ch’aska Anka Ninawaman
No full textThis article is a transcription of an interview with the Peruvian writer Ch’aska Anka Ninawaman.It is a conversation on Quechua oral poetry and its self-translation into Spanish.Este artículo es la transcripción de una entrevista realizada a la escritora peruana Ch’askaAnka Ninawaman. Se trata de una conversación sobre temas relacionados con la poesía oral quechua y suautotraducción al castellano
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