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L'EFFETTO MANCATO DELLA RIFORMA MAGGIORITARIA: IL VOTO STRATEGICO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2018

Alessandro Chiaramonte

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La riforma elettorale tra speranze e scetticismo

Al tempo della campagna in favore dell'adozione del principio maggioritario di rappresentanza in Italia, la speranza di molti era che il nuovo sistema elettorale potesse produrre effetti simili a quelli delle democrazie anglosassoni cui intendeva ispirarsi, ossia che strutturasse la competizione partitica in termini bipolari – se non bipartitici – e favorisse quindi l'alternanza dei governi.

Sebbene siano trascorsi ormai più di tre anni da allora e, soprattutto, abbiano avuto luogo due elezioni, è ancora presto per dire se le nuove regole abbiano prodotto gli effetti desiderati. La transizione politica italiana è un processo ancora lontano dall'approdo finale e non consente ad oggi valutazioni definitive. Certo è che i sistemi elettorali introdotti nel 1993 sono stati caricati da molti di attese taumaturgiche, nonostante i moniti lanciati dal mondo scientifico sulla necessità di una modifica ben più incisiva dell'architettura istituzionale del sistema politico italiano. Qualunque sistema elettorale, infatti, costituisce di per sé solo una struttura di vincoli e di opportunità, dunque di vincoli più o meno stringenti e di opportunità che possono essere colte o meno. Inoltre, riguardo all'effettiva configurazione della normativa elettorale approvata dal Parlamento nell'agosto del 1993, la cautela sulle prospettive del cambiamento muoveva dalla considerazione che le nuove regole incarnavano entrambi i principi maggioritario (pur prevalente) e proporzionale di rappresentanza, quindi due logiche distinte di competizione e di voto sulla combinazione delle quali era difficile fare previsioni.

Summary

Summary

The goal of this essay is to investigate the existence of strategic voting in the electoral behaviour of Italian voters in both the 1994 and 1996 elections and its effects on the restructuring of the party system.

Strategic voting is a topic discussed in the literature for many years. In the context of the effects of electoral systems, the term strategic voting is normally used to describe the district-by-district phenomenon of third party supporters under the plurality rule voting for one of the two major parties. This is due to the tendency of such electoral systems to discourage voters from wasting their vote (minor parties are in fact sistematically underrepresented). As a consequence, «winner-takes-all» electoral laws tend to produce two-party systems, but only if the two major parties are the same in every constituency.

On this theoretical basis, the Italian electoral reforms of 1993 with the introduction of a predominantly majoritarian system were expected to offer new incentives toward strategic voting in the single-member districts and therefore toward a bipolarization of the party system, provided that the pattern of competition was the same nationwide. However, empirical tests based on district-level data show that strategic voting has not significantly occurred either in the 1994 or in the 1996 elections.

The heritage of the old proportional electoral system, a slow learning process of the new rules, the persistence of ideological voting and also the contradictory incentives deriving from the mixed proportional and majoritarian nature of the new electoral system (especially for the Senate) are all reasons for the lack of strategic voting.

Nevertheless, the Italian party system, emerging out of the electoral transition shows a bipolar tendency. In other words, party élites have successfully negotiated appropriate coalitions at the system level replacing the effects produced by strategic voting at the mass level.

Type
Elezioni Polltiche 1996
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , December 1996 , pp. 703 - 726
Copyright
Copyright © Societ Italiana di Scienza Politica 

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