Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:09:43.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Territory, religion, and vote: nationalization of politics and the Catholic party in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2016

Piero Ignazi  and
Spencer Wellhofer
Piero Ignazi*
Affiliation:
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Spencer Wellhofer
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Denver, Denver CO 80208, USA
*
*E-mail: piero.ignazi@unibo.it
Get access

Abstract

This analysis challenges the consensus that, in post-war Italy the Catholic party [Democrazia Cristiana (Dc)], actively supported by the Catholic Church, fostered a process of vote nationalization. The paper, drawing upon a more fine-grained level of analysis, different statistical measures, and within and across regional models, provides a more nuanced interpretation. According to our analysis, although the Dc effectively acted as a homogenizing agent until the late 1970s, after that decade the processes of modernization and secularization fostered the decline of religious-based politics, and of the Dc itself. Such decline opened the way for the re-emergence of a territorial cleavage and a consequent dis-homogenization of Italian electoral politics. The paper demonstrated that the impact of modernization and secularization on the vote for the Catholic party is more significant considering the five Italy’s geo-political areas rather than the country as a whole. Moreover, the divergent path in the five areas testifies the re-emergence of territory in the Italian electoral behaviour. Territorial heterogeneity, modernization, and secularization were central to the collapse of the Dc.

Keywords

secularizationDcnationalization of voteItaly
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 21 - 43
Copyright
© Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Agnew, J. (2002), Place and Politics in Modern Italy, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Aleman, E. and Kellam, M. (2008), ‘The nationalization of electoral change in the Americas’, Electoral Studies 27: 193–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arculeo, A. and Marradi, A. (1985), ‘Relazione tra elezioni e referenza negli anni settanta’, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 15: 99–141.Google Scholar
Asparouhov, T. and Muthen, B. (2008), ‘Multilevel mixture models’, in G. Hancock and K. Samuelson (eds), Advances in Latent Variable Mixture Models, Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, pp. 27–51.Google Scholar
Bochsler, D. (2010), ‘Measuring party natioinalisation: a new Gini-based indicator that corrects for the number of units’, Electoral Studies 29: 155–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollen, K.A. and Curran, P. (2006), Latent Curve Models, New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Bryk, A.S. and Raudenbush, S.W. (2002), Hierarchical linear models: applications and data analysis methods, second edition. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Butler, D. and Stokes, D. (1974), Political Change in Britain, London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caciagli, M. (1990), ‘Erosioni e mutamenti nell’elettorato democristiano’, in C. Mario and A. Spreafico (eds), Vent’anni di elezioni in Italia. 1968–1987, Padova: Liviana, pp. 3–30.Google Scholar
Caramani, D. (2004), The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cartocci, R. (1990), Elettori in Italia, Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Cartocci, R. (2011), Geografia dell’Italia cattolica, Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Compagna, F. and De Capraris, V. (1954), Geografia delle elezioni italiane 1946-1953, Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
De Rosa, G. (1971), Vescovi, popolo e magia nel Sud : ricerche di storia socio-religiosa dal 17. al 19. Secolo, Napoli: Guida.Google Scholar
De Rosa, G. (1979), Chiesa e religione popolare nel Mezzogiorno, Roma-Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Diamanti, I. (2009), Mappe dall'Italia politica: Bianco, rosso, verde, azzurro...e tricolore, Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Diotallevi, L. (1999), ‘The territorial articulation of secularization in Italy: social modernization, religious modernization’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions 107: 77–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, T.E., Duncan, S.C., Li, F. and Strycker, L.A. (2002), ‘Multilevel modeling of longitudinal and functional data’, in D.S. Moskowitz and S.L. Hershberger (eds), Modeling Intraindividual Variability with Repeated Measured Data, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbau, pp. 171–202.Google Scholar
Ertman, T. (2009), ‘Western European party systems and the religious cleavage’, in K. vas Kersbergen and P. Manow (eds), Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 39–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faggioli, M. (2012), ‘The new elites of Italian Catholicism: 1968 and the New Catholic Movements’, The Catholic Historical Review 98: 18–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galli, G., et al. (1968), Il comportamento elettorale in Italia, Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Galli, G. and Prandi, A. (1970), Patterns of Political Participation in Italy, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Garelli, F. (1991), Religione e Chiesa in Italia, Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Garelli, F. (2007), ‘The public relevance of the Church and Catholicism in Italy’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 12: 8–36.Google Scholar
Garelli, F. (2011), Religione all’italiana, Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Getis, A. and Ord, J.K. (1992), ‘The analysis of spatial association by using distance statistics’, Geographical Analysis 24(3): 189–206.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, P. (1989), Storia d’Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi, Torino: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, C. (1972), ‘Folklore, magia, religione’ Annali della Storia d’Italia , Vol. 1 Einaudi: Torino, 601–676.Google Scholar
Giovagnoli, A. (1996), Il partito italiano .La Democrazia Cristiana dal 1942 al 1994, Roma-Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Gould, A. (1999), Origins of Liberal Dominance: State, Church, and Party in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Ignazi, P. (2011), ‘Christian democratic parties’, in B., Badie, D., Berg-Schlosser and L., Morlino (eds), International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 227–233.Google Scholar
Ignazi, P. and Wellhofer, E.S. (2013a), ‘Votes and voting candles: modernization, secularization, vatican ii and the decline of religious voting in Italy: 1953-1992’, Comparative Political Studies 46: 1–32.Google Scholar
Ignazi, P. and Wellhofer, E.S. (2013b), ‘Lineages and family resemblances: tracing the Italian Dc vote after 1994’, Contemporary Italian Politics 1: 4–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iuzzolino, G., Pellegrini, G. and Viesti, G. (2011), ‘Convergence among Italian regions, 1861–2011’, Quaderni di Storia Economica, Banca d’Italia, n. 22.Google Scholar
Jones, M.P. and Mainwaring, S. (2003), ‘The nationalization of parties and party systems: an empirical measure and an application to the Americas’, Party Politics 9: 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, S. (1996), The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe, Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, S. (1998), ‘From pulpit to party: party formation and the Christian democratic phenomenon’, Comparative Politics 31(2): 293–312.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, S.N. and Van Kersbergen, K. (2010), ‘Christian democracy’, Annual Review of Political Science 13: 183–209.Google Scholar
Kasuya, Y. and Moenius, J. (2008), ‘The nationalization of party systems: conceptual issues and alternative commune t-focused measures’, Electoral Studies 27: 126–135.Google Scholar
Li, F., Duncan, T. and Acock, A. (2000), ‘Modeling interaction effects in latent growth curve models’, Structural Equation Modeling 7(4): 497–533.Google Scholar
Li, F., Duncan, T., Duncan, S. and Acock, A. (2001), ‘Latent growth modeling on longitudinal data: a finite growth mixture modeling approach’, Structural Equation Modeling 8(4): 493–530.Google Scholar
Madeley, J. (2003), ‘A framework for the comparative analysis of church–state relations in Europe’, West European Politics 26(1): 23–50.Google Scholar
Muthen, B. (1997), ‘Latent variable growth modeling with multilevel data’, in M. Berkane (ed.), Latent Variable Modeling with Applications to Causality, New York: Springer, pp. 149–161.Google Scholar
Muthen, B. (2004), ‘Latent variable analysis: growth mixture modeling and related techniques for longitudinal data’, in D. Kaplan (ed.), Handbook of Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Ord, J.K. and Getis, A. (1995), ‘Local spatial autocorrelation statistics: distributional issues and an application’, Geographical Analysis 27(4): 286–306.Google Scholar
Pavsic, R. (1985), ‘Esiste una tendenza all’omogeneizzazione territoriale nei partiti italiani’, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 15: 69–96.Google Scholar
Pollard, J. (2008), Catholicism in Modern Italy. Religion, Society and Politics Since 1861, Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Preacher, K.J., Wichman, A.L., MacCallum, R.C. and Briggs, N.E. (2008), ‘Latent growth curve analysis’, in F.L. Tim (ed.), Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, Los Angeles: Sage, p. 157.Google Scholar
Rabe-Hesketh, S., Skrondal, A. and Pickles, A. (2004), ‘Generalized multi-level structural equation modeling’, Psychometrika 69: 167–190.Google Scholar
Riccardi, A. (1999), ‘Il cattolicesimo della Repubblica’, in S. Giovanni and V. Vittorio (eds), Storia d’Italia, Roma-Bari: Laterza, pp. 296–302.Google Scholar
Rokkan, S. (1970), Citizens, Elections and Parties, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Segatti, P. (1999), ‘Regliosità e territorio nel voto alla Democrazia Cristiana dal 1948 al 1992’, Polis 13: 45–65.Google Scholar
van Kersbergen, K. (2008), ‘The Christian democratic phoenix and modern unsecular politics’, Party Politics 14: 259–280.Google Scholar
Wertman, D. (1993), ‘The Christian Democrats: a party in crisis’, in P. Gianfranco and P. McCarthy (eds), The End of Post-War Politics. The Landmark 1992 Elections, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 12–30.Google Scholar
Willett, J.B. and Bub, K.L. (2005), ‘Structural equation modeling: latent growth curve analysis’, in Encyclopedia of Statistics in Behavioral Science, New York: Wiley. Available at http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/emrw/9780470013199/esbs/article/bsa599/current/abstract Google Scholar
Zamagni, V. (1993), The Economic History of Italy: 1860-1990, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Data Sources

Istituto Cattaneo (1964), Dati sulla struttura socio-economica dei comuni italiani, 1951-1961; Dati sulle elezioni politiche, 1946-1963, Bologna: Istituto Cattaneo.Google Scholar
Istat (1974, 1984, 1992), National Census, 1971, 1982, 1991, Rome: Istat.Google Scholar