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Public Opinion Research in Political Science
Full text linkSince the late nineteenth century, the tension generated by the lumping of subjective and personal opinion with objective and common public as a single concept is matter that urged scholars to provide a comprehensive definition of public opinion. This article is intended to trace the history of the modern study of public opinion in political science. It begins with a description of the early theoretical works and their attempts to investigate the mass public through systematic and normative analyses, and then focuses on the individual and psychological dimension examined by contemporary empirical works. The article draws some conclusions on both the main achievements and the most manifested limitations that this branch of political analysis must overcome in order to better understand the relationship between public opinion and democratic governance
Partecipanti e non partecipanti limiti di rappresentatività in pratiche di democrazia deliberativa
No full textI recenti esperimenti di democrazia deliberativa si sono contraddistinti per lo sforzo profuso nell’incrementare la rappresentatività del campione dei partecipanti rispetto alla popolazione di riferimento. Campionamento e reclutamento hanno assunto una valenza sempre più significativa per la riuscita di una pratica deliberativa, rafforzando la validità dei risultati ottenuti durante l’intero processo dialogico-deliberativo. Malgrado la scrupolosa attenzione durante la selezione dei partecipanti e l’adozione di sistemi di controllo basati sulle principali variabili socio-demografiche, si può tuttavia evidenziare come, anche in contesti quasi-sperimentali, coloro che decidono di partecipare a simili eventi mostrano delle peculiarità che li contraddistinguono da coloro che decidono di non prendervi parte, con possibili implicazioni per gli stessi esiti qualitativi dell’esperimento. L’articolo proposto intende esaminare le caratteristiche dei partecipanti a due deliberative polls rispettivamente svoltisi a Torino (la Consultazione dei Cittadini) e Bruxelles (Europolis) tra il 2007 ed il 2009. Dopo avere individuato le principali caratteristiche dei partecipanti ed averle contrapposte con quelle dei non partecipanti tramite strumenti di statistica descrittiva e l’utilizzo della tecnica dell’analisi discriminante, lo studio propone l’applicazione di un modello sperimentale che permette l’individuazione e l’impiego di un campione ampiamente rappresentativo della popolazione di riferimento sul quale replicare i risultati dell’evento. Obiettivo dell’articolo è esaminare le eventuali divergenze negli atteggiamenti antecedenti e successivi all’evento deliberativo nel campione reale, composto dai partecipanti effettivi, ed in quello ipotetico, costituito invece da casi virtuali pesati e stratificati sulla base delle caratteristiche socio-demografiche e socio-politiche dei non partecipanti
Replication Data for: The alleged consensus: Italian elites and publics on foreign policy
No full textThe article compares the way Italian (governmental and political) elites and (organised and general) publics perceive the international system and conceive of the role of Italy in it by using an ad-hoc survey conducted specifically for this study. In order to establish whether a horizontal (left-right) and vertical (top-down) consensus exists on foreign policy, special attention has been paid to divergence and convergence patterns in terms of threat perception, feelings towards the (American and European) allies, support for the main institutional mechanisms of coordination and cooperation, and willingness to use military power to defend the constituted order and the national interest, while controlling for the position and level of action of each actor within the foreign policy-making process as well as her or his ideological orientation. While tracing elites’ and publics’ attitudes towards a wide range of foreign policy and security issues, the article reveals the effect of ideological and situational factors on the strategic preferences of national policy-makers and public opinion. In doing this, it contributes to define both the substance and boundaries of the alleged consensus, based on shared norms and historical legacies, supposedly overcoming socio-economic and political cleavages in matters of foreign policy
Framing war: Public opinion and decision-making in comparative perspective
No full textMost research on framing has focused on media and elite frames: the ways that the mass media and politicians present information about issues and events to the public. Until now, the process by which citizens' opinions may affect the initial frame-building process has been largely ignored. The two-way flow of influence between public opinion and decision-makers has been analyzed more from a top-down than a bottom-up perspective. Olmastroni addresses this issue by introducing a cyclicalmodel of framing. Additionally, most empirical studies on media framing have centered on the United States. Olmastroni's text seeks to overcome this limitation of prior research by examining different types of framing in three different countries. Framing War uses the recent war on Iraq as a case study, focusing on the elite and media framing of this event in order to examine the interaction between the political elite and the mass public in three Western democracies-France, Italy, and the US-during the early and on-going stages of the military crisis. The book analyzes whether and, potentially, the extent to which decision-makers tracked and responded to public opinion in presenting their foreign policy choices. It examines the strategies and approaches that governments potentially adopted to influence public opinion towards either the need for or the lack of need for a military intervention. By representing the framing paradigm as a cycle, Olmastroni shows how each actor within the system (i.e., government and other elites, news media, and public opinion) is linked to the others and contributes to the final representation of an issue. In contrast with other theoretical perspectives of framing, this book states that the framing influence does not only proceed from the government to the public, but it often moves at the same level of the system, with each actor playing different roles. Olmastroni's insights on framing are significant for researchers in international relations, political communication, public opinion, comparative politics, and political psychology, as well as policy analysts, journalists, and commentators
Patterns of isolationism: a quantitative assessment of Italy’s defence and foreign policy from government alternation to ‘grand coalitions’
No full textThis article examines how Italy’s projection abroad has changed in terms of its capabilities. Budgetary allocations to the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs are examined to understand whether and how spending on these policy areas has varied as an effect of the economic crisis. The number of troops deployed in military operations and the mandate under which they operate are analysed to verify whether the use of military force has changed, quantitatively and qualitatively, in the last few years. Although this article is centred on the recent ‘grand coalition’ governments, namely those of Enrico Letta and Matteo Renzi, trend analysis is used to determine patterns of change or continuity in Italian foreign policy (IFP) over time and across executives
Replication Data for: The alleged consensus: Italian elites and publics on foreign policy
No full textThe article compares the way Italian (governmental and political) elites and (organised and general) publics perceive the international system and conceive of the role of Italy in it by using an ad-hoc survey conducted specifically for this study. In order to establish whether a horizontal (left-right) and vertical (top-down) consensus exists on foreign policy, special attention has been paid to divergence and convergence patterns in terms of threat perception, feelings towards the (American and European) allies, support for the main institutional mechanisms of coordination and cooperation, and willingness to use military power to defend the constituted order and the national interest, while controlling for the position and level of action of each actor within the foreign policy-making process as well as her or his ideological orientation. While tracing elites’ and publics’ attitudes towards a wide range of foreign policy and security issues, the article reveals the effect of ideological and situational factors on the strategic preferences of national policy-makers and public opinion. In doing this, it contributes to define both the substance and boundaries of the alleged consensus, based on shared norms and historical legacies, supposedly overcoming socio-economic and political cleavages in matters of foreign policy
The alleged consensus: Italian elites and publics on foreign policy
No full textThe article compares the way Italian (governmental and political) elites and (organized and general) publics perceive the international system and conceive of the role of Italy in it by using an ad hoc survey conducted specifically for this study. In order to establish whether a horizontal (left-right) and vertical (top-down) consensus exists on foreign policy, special attention has been paid to divergence and convergence patterns in terms of threat perception, feelings towards the (American and European) allies, support for the main institutional mechanisms of coordination and cooperation, and willingness to use military power to defend the constituted order and the national interest, while controlling for the position and level of action of each actor within the foreign policy-making process as well as her or his ideological orientation. While tracing elites’ and publics’ attitudes towards a wide range of foreign policy and security issues, the article reveals the effect of ideological and situational factors on the strategic preferences of national policy-makers and public opinion. In doing this, it contributes to define both the substance and boundaries of the alleged consensus, based on shared norms and historical legacies, supposedly overcoming socio-economic and political cleavages in matters of foreign policy
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