The abundance of economic data and the scarcity of social data with a comparable level of granularity is a problem for the quantitative analysis of social phenomena. I argue that this fundamental problem has misguided the analysis of the electoral results of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and its interpretation. In this article, I provide statistical evidence suggesting that — in the South — unemployment is not associated with the exceptional increase in the M5S support and that local participation is a stronger predictor of support than most of the demographics.
The 2018 Italian general elections (elections, since both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, were renewed) saw
and
The following two maps show where the M5S and the League have increased electoral support from 2013 to 2018. (Electoral data are always data for the election of the Chamber of Deputies).
Vote difference: 2018-2013 (a few communes have not reported all the results, notably Rome)
The geographic pattern is quite simple. The M5S has increased its support in the South and maintained its votes in the North, the League has significantly strengthened its support in the North but has also collected votes in the South, where it had virtually no support. The third and the fourth most voted parties, the Democratic Party (PD) and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), have lost votes almost everywhere. If we map the results of the four parties side-by-side with the same scale, the PD and FI almost faded into the background.
Votes in the 2018 General elections
Yet, major metropolitan areas do not always follow the national trend. If Naples unambiguously voted M5S, Turin, Milan and Rome did saw the Democratic Party as the most voted party in the wealthiest districts.
Votes in the 2018 General elections (Clock-wise from top-left: Turin, Milan, Naples, Rome)
Distribution of votes at commune or sub-commune level
The territoriality of the results, especially along the North-South dimension, makes the analysis especially complicated. This because the strong result of the League in the North and of the M5S in the South might simplistically suggest that immigration (which is much stronger in the North) explains the League’s result in the North and unemployment and poverty (stronger in the South) explain the M5S’s result in the South. This reading is especially attractive since immigration and the M5S proposal to introduce a guaranteed minim income have dominated the campaign.
Tuesday, 20 March 2018
r-bloggers.com Simply Statistics Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Email: Francesco.Bailo@uts.edu.au
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