Pamela Pansardi
Biographic Data
| ID | 4378018 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pamela Pansardi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pamela |
| FAMILY NAME | Pansardi |
| SIGNATURE | PANSARDI P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pavia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4148-502X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 144 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Revisiting the political opposition of the European Parliament: A rhetorical analysis of parliamentary speeches
This article critically revisits Peter Mair’s famous 2007 analysis of the European Parliament’s (EP) weak political opposition, examining the extent to which the Parliament serves as an arena for inter- and intra-institutional opposition in EU politics, with a specific focus on the symbolic signaling of opposition. Distinguishing between three different types of political opposition (collective, ‘majority-minority,’ ‘pro-/anti-European’), the pap…
The feminisation of Italian governments. Towards a more gender-equal distribution of political power
This article investigates whether a more equal gender distribution of power has emerged in Italian governments. Applying the newly developed ‘Political Power of Roles’ model, which measures the power of cabinet positions, we analyse the share of government power held by women senior and junior ministers from 1992 to 2024. The three most recent governments (Conte II, Draghi, and Meloni) are those exhibiting greater feminisation in terms of an over…
Do women promote women? Prime ministers’ gender, ideology, and ministerial selection
What makes political parties to elect more women? a cross-country comparison
While women are gaining ground in national parliaments worldwide, the number of female representatives varies greatly between political parties. Since parties themselves can reflect gender biases, they play a key role in shaping women’s representation. Building on the existing literature, this research note examines the interplay between electoral systems, national institutions, and party characteristics to understand these disparities. By analys…
The study of Italian regional politics and the composition of the regional political class. The Itregparl dataset
One of the most persistent challenges in the study of regional politics in Italy is the lack of systematized data and information about the composition of regional legislatures and governments and the profiles of elected officials. In this paper, we describe the ITREGPARL dataset, a new comprehensive dataset of Italian regional politics comprising 6077 regional politicians from 1993 to 2020. It includes information about regional councillors, reg…
Women Leading the Opposition: Gender and Rhetoric in the European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is an intriguing arena to study the nexus between gender, speech-making, and leadership performance, as it simultaneously challenges and confirms gender-based hierarchies in legislative contexts. While the EP has a higher level of women’s representation than national parliaments, women’s access to top-level positions nonetheless remains limited. Yet the EP is a special case of a legislature. Lacking a right of initiat…
Do (strong) gender quotas make a difference? Multiple candidacies as a party gatekeeping strategy in Italy
Gender quotas are generally regarded as the foremost measure for the promotion of gender equality in politics. While quotas and their impact vary across countries, a strong quota system is defined as including blocked electoral lists, large district magnitude, strong non-compliance sanctions, and rank-order rules like gender alternation in the candidate lists. Yet, also in the presence of strong quota rules, parties might attempt strategies aimed…
A “More Political” Commission? Reassessing EC Politicization through Language
This article contributes to the study of the European Commission's (EC) politicization by examining this phenomenon from the angle of communication. We elaborate a novel approach based on two linguistic indicators – charisma and technicality – which we then apply through a content analysis of 8,947 speeches delivered by Commission members between 1999 and 2019. Contrary to the narrative of an ever more political Commission, we find that the lingu…
The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with
Why we do need a concept of power
Dowding’s new edition of RCPP includes an original reflection on the task of conceptual analysis, where he argues against the need to provide a formal definition of power. In doing so, he endorses a strong anti-essentialist view on the definition of political concepts and resorts to a reductionist conception of power based on the notion of power-resources. In this article, I investigate the implications of Dowding's position for the understanding…
The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with
The distinction between the notions of power-over, power-to and power-with is gaining prominence in contemporary literature on power. In this article, recent contributions to the study of power will be presented and assessed to provide an overview of the evolving meanings of power-to, power-over and power-with. In particular, we will show that the distinction between power-over, power-to and power-with is no longer interpreted as a dispute about …
Speaking social Europe: A paradigmatic shift in the European Commission Presidents’ social policy discourse
This article presents an original analysis of the social policy discourse at the European Union level by focusing on the language used by European Commission Presidents when addressing social issues. Through an empirical analysis based on a semi-supervised machine learning approach, we consider the entire corpus of speeches made by Barroso and Juncker from 2010 to 2018 and we classify all sentences according to three possible variants of social p…
Gender penalty and electoral outcomes in the 2018 Italian elections
The number of women in the Italian parliament has steadily increased in recent decades, leading to a share of about 36 per cent of female legislators in the Chamber of Deputies in the 18th legislature. However, this result, while attesting to an improvement in the gender balance in the Italian parliament, does not really reflect the considerable increase in the share of female candidates that took place in the run-up to the 2018 election thanks t…
The charismatic leadership of the ECB presidency: A language‐based analysis
There is little doubt that the European Central Bank (ECB), and in particular its presidency, has taken the lead in tackling the euro crisis. But can this leadership be also characterised as charismatic? This article answers the question by focusing on language – a key component as well as a reliable indicator of charisma. By means of a software‐assisted content analysis of the entire corpus of ECB presidential speeches, it is found that the cris…
The discursive legitimation strategies of the president of the commission: A qualitative content analysis of the State of the Union Addresses (Soteu)
In this work, we investigate the way in which the two latest Presidents of the Commission have tackled the question of the legitimacy of the EU in the delivery of the State of the Union Addresses (SOTEU). Our analysis, based on a qualitative content analysis of the SOTEU speeches, identifies a marked difference in the discursive legitimation strategies employed by the two Presidents and in the conception of the legitimacy of the EU that they prom…
It is better to be powerful and lucky. Keith Dowding’s theory of power between agency and structure
Despite the volume and variety of works on the concept of power, not that many have been written by political philosophers working in the analytical tradition. As a matter of fact, while concepts s
Party Gate-Keeping and Women's Appointment to Parliamentary Committees: Evidence from the Italian Case
In this article, we investigate whether and how political parties function as gate-keepers in determining gender differentiations in committee appointments by using the Italian parliamentary committee system from 1994 to 2013 as a case study. Committee membership provides individual MPs with direct influence in a specific policy area as well as with visibility and expertise, thus affecting MPs’ political careers. Accordingly, to study women's app…
Democracy, domination and the distribution of power: Substantive Political Equality as a Procedural Requirement
In this article I attempt a normative analysis of the relations between the ideal of democracy and the distribution of power. In particular, I suggest that democratic institutions and procedures, as they are generally understood, are not able per se to avoid domination. In line with the interpretation of domination that I propose, I claim that in order to promote an ideal of democracy as non-domination we need to take into account power inequalit…
Power to and power over: Two distinct concepts of power
In this article, I analyze the relations between the concepts of power to and power over. The distinction between these two interpretations of power is commonly based on the assumed relational nature of attributions of power over as opposed to the dispositional nature of attributions of power to. I argue, by contrast, that power to refers to social relations as well, and I suggest, accordingly, to consider power to and power over as describing th…
On abilities and power again: A reply to Peter Morriss
Replying to my article ‘Power to and power over: two distinct concepts of power?’, Peter Morriss offers some arguments against my attempt to reconcile the concept of power to and that of power over. In particular, he questions my interpretation of ‘power’ as necessarily implying social relations. In this reply, I provide further reasons for holding that a relational (as opposed to an ability-based) interpretation of power is the most appropriate …
A non-normative theory of power and domination
Despite the variety of competing interpretations of domination, a common feature of the most influential analyses of the concept is their reliance on a normative criterion: the detrimental effect of domination on those subject to it. This article offers a non-evaluative, non-consequence-based definition of domination, in line with the perspective on power developed by the theory of the social exchange. Domination, it is argued, should be seen as …
Power and Freedom: Opposite or Equivalent Concepts
Power to and power over: Two distinct concepts of power
In this article, I analyze the relations between the concepts of power to and power over. The distinction between these two interpretations of power is commonly based on the assumed relational nature of attributions of power over as opposed to the dispositional nature of attributions of power to. I argue, by contrast, that power to refers to social relations as well, and I suggest, accordingly, to consider power to and power over as describing th…
Party Gate-Keeping and Women's Appointment to Parliamentary Committees: Evidence from the Italian Case
In this article, we investigate whether and how political parties function as gate-keepers in determining gender differentiations in committee appointments by using the Italian parliamentary committee system from 1994 to 2013 as a case study. Committee membership provides individual MPs with direct influence in a specific policy area as well as with visibility and expertise, thus affecting MPs’ political careers. Accordingly, to study women's app…
The charismatic leadership of the ECB presidency: A language‐based analysis
There is little doubt that the European Central Bank (ECB), and in particular its presidency, has taken the lead in tackling the euro crisis. But can this leadership be also characterised as charismatic? This article answers the question by focusing on language – a key component as well as a reliable indicator of charisma. By means of a software‐assisted content analysis of the entire corpus of ECB presidential speeches, it is found that the cris…
The discursive legitimation strategies of the president of the commission: A qualitative content analysis of the State of the Union Addresses (Soteu)
In this work, we investigate the way in which the two latest Presidents of the Commission have tackled the question of the legitimacy of the EU in the delivery of the State of the Union Addresses (SOTEU). Our analysis, based on a qualitative content analysis of the SOTEU speeches, identifies a marked difference in the discursive legitimation strategies employed by the two Presidents and in the conception of the legitimacy of the EU that they prom…
Do (strong) gender quotas make a difference? Multiple candidacies as a party gatekeeping strategy in Italy
Gender quotas are generally regarded as the foremost measure for the promotion of gender equality in politics. While quotas and their impact vary across countries, a strong quota system is defined as including blocked electoral lists, large district magnitude, strong non-compliance sanctions, and rank-order rules like gender alternation in the candidate lists. Yet, also in the presence of strong quota rules, parties might attempt strategies aimed…
Speaking social Europe: A paradigmatic shift in the European Commission Presidents’ social policy discourse
This article presents an original analysis of the social policy discourse at the European Union level by focusing on the language used by European Commission Presidents when addressing social issues. Through an empirical analysis based on a semi-supervised machine learning approach, we consider the entire corpus of speeches made by Barroso and Juncker from 2010 to 2018 and we classify all sentences according to three possible variants of social p…
The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with
The distinction between the notions of power-over, power-to and power-with is gaining prominence in contemporary literature on power. In this article, recent contributions to the study of power will be presented and assessed to provide an overview of the evolving meanings of power-to, power-over and power-with. In particular, we will show that the distinction between power-over, power-to and power-with is no longer interpreted as a dispute about …
A “More Political” Commission? Reassessing EC Politicization through Language
This article contributes to the study of the European Commission's (EC) politicization by examining this phenomenon from the angle of communication. We elaborate a novel approach based on two linguistic indicators – charisma and technicality – which we then apply through a content analysis of 8,947 speeches delivered by Commission members between 1999 and 2019. Contrary to the narrative of an ever more political Commission, we find that the lingu…
A non-normative theory of power and domination
Despite the variety of competing interpretations of domination, a common feature of the most influential analyses of the concept is their reliance on a normative criterion: the detrimental effect of domination on those subject to it. This article offers a non-evaluative, non-consequence-based definition of domination, in line with the perspective on power developed by the theory of the social exchange. Domination, it is argued, should be seen as …
Gender penalty and electoral outcomes in the 2018 Italian elections
The number of women in the Italian parliament has steadily increased in recent decades, leading to a share of about 36 per cent of female legislators in the Chamber of Deputies in the 18th legislature. However, this result, while attesting to an improvement in the gender balance in the Italian parliament, does not really reflect the considerable increase in the share of female candidates that took place in the run-up to the 2018 election thanks t…
Women Leading the Opposition: Gender and Rhetoric in the European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is an intriguing arena to study the nexus between gender, speech-making, and leadership performance, as it simultaneously challenges and confirms gender-based hierarchies in legislative contexts. While the EP has a higher level of women’s representation than national parliaments, women’s access to top-level positions nonetheless remains limited. Yet the EP is a special case of a legislature. Lacking a right of initiat…
What makes political parties to elect more women? a cross-country comparison
While women are gaining ground in national parliaments worldwide, the number of female representatives varies greatly between political parties. Since parties themselves can reflect gender biases, they play a key role in shaping women’s representation. Building on the existing literature, this research note examines the interplay between electoral systems, national institutions, and party characteristics to understand these disparities. By analys…
On abilities and power again: A reply to Peter Morriss
Replying to my article ‘Power to and power over: two distinct concepts of power?’, Peter Morriss offers some arguments against my attempt to reconcile the concept of power to and that of power over. In particular, he questions my interpretation of ‘power’ as necessarily implying social relations. In this reply, I provide further reasons for holding that a relational (as opposed to an ability-based) interpretation of power is the most appropriate …
Power to and power over: Two distinct concepts of power
In this article, I analyze the relations between the concepts of power to and power over. The distinction between these two interpretations of power is commonly based on the assumed relational nature of attributions of power over as opposed to the dispositional nature of attributions of power to. I argue, by contrast, that power to refers to social relations as well, and I suggest, accordingly, to consider power to and power over as describing th…
On abilities and power again: A reply to Peter Morriss
Replying to my article ‘Power to and power over: two distinct concepts of power?’, Peter Morriss offers some arguments against my attempt to reconcile the concept of power to and that of power over. In particular, he questions my interpretation of ‘power’ as necessarily implying social relations. In this reply, I provide further reasons for holding that a relational (as opposed to an ability-based) interpretation of power is the most appropriate …
A non-normative theory of power and domination
Despite the variety of competing interpretations of domination, a common feature of the most influential analyses of the concept is their reliance on a normative criterion: the detrimental effect of domination on those subject to it. This article offers a non-evaluative, non-consequence-based definition of domination, in line with the perspective on power developed by the theory of the social exchange. Domination, it is argued, should be seen as …
Power and Freedom: Opposite or Equivalent Concepts
Democracy, domination and the distribution of power: Substantive Political Equality as a Procedural Requirement
In this article I attempt a normative analysis of the relations between the ideal of democracy and the distribution of power. In particular, I suggest that democratic institutions and procedures, as they are generally understood, are not able per se to avoid domination. In line with the interpretation of domination that I propose, I claim that in order to promote an ideal of democracy as non-domination we need to take into account power inequalit…
It is better to be powerful and lucky. Keith Dowding’s theory of power between agency and structure
Despite the volume and variety of works on the concept of power, not that many have been written by political philosophers working in the analytical tradition. As a matter of fact, while concepts s
Party Gate-Keeping and Women's Appointment to Parliamentary Committees: Evidence from the Italian Case
In this article, we investigate whether and how political parties function as gate-keepers in determining gender differentiations in committee appointments by using the Italian parliamentary committee system from 1994 to 2013 as a case study. Committee membership provides individual MPs with direct influence in a specific policy area as well as with visibility and expertise, thus affecting MPs’ political careers. Accordingly, to study women's app…
The discursive legitimation strategies of the president of the commission: A qualitative content analysis of the State of the Union Addresses (Soteu)
In this work, we investigate the way in which the two latest Presidents of the Commission have tackled the question of the legitimacy of the EU in the delivery of the State of the Union Addresses (SOTEU). Our analysis, based on a qualitative content analysis of the SOTEU speeches, identifies a marked difference in the discursive legitimation strategies employed by the two Presidents and in the conception of the legitimacy of the EU that they prom…
The charismatic leadership of the ECB presidency: A language‐based analysis
There is little doubt that the European Central Bank (ECB), and in particular its presidency, has taken the lead in tackling the euro crisis. But can this leadership be also characterised as charismatic? This article answers the question by focusing on language – a key component as well as a reliable indicator of charisma. By means of a software‐assisted content analysis of the entire corpus of ECB presidential speeches, it is found that the cris…
Gender penalty and electoral outcomes in the 2018 Italian elections
The number of women in the Italian parliament has steadily increased in recent decades, leading to a share of about 36 per cent of female legislators in the Chamber of Deputies in the 18th legislature. However, this result, while attesting to an improvement in the gender balance in the Italian parliament, does not really reflect the considerable increase in the share of female candidates that took place in the run-up to the 2018 election thanks t…
The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with
Why we do need a concept of power
Dowding’s new edition of RCPP includes an original reflection on the task of conceptual analysis, where he argues against the need to provide a formal definition of power. In doing so, he endorses a strong anti-essentialist view on the definition of political concepts and resorts to a reductionist conception of power based on the notion of power-resources. In this article, I investigate the implications of Dowding's position for the understanding…
The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with
The distinction between the notions of power-over, power-to and power-with is gaining prominence in contemporary literature on power. In this article, recent contributions to the study of power will be presented and assessed to provide an overview of the evolving meanings of power-to, power-over and power-with. In particular, we will show that the distinction between power-over, power-to and power-with is no longer interpreted as a dispute about …
Speaking social Europe: A paradigmatic shift in the European Commission Presidents’ social policy discourse
This article presents an original analysis of the social policy discourse at the European Union level by focusing on the language used by European Commission Presidents when addressing social issues. Through an empirical analysis based on a semi-supervised machine learning approach, we consider the entire corpus of speeches made by Barroso and Juncker from 2010 to 2018 and we classify all sentences according to three possible variants of social p…
A “More Political” Commission? Reassessing EC Politicization through Language
This article contributes to the study of the European Commission's (EC) politicization by examining this phenomenon from the angle of communication. We elaborate a novel approach based on two linguistic indicators – charisma and technicality – which we then apply through a content analysis of 8,947 speeches delivered by Commission members between 1999 and 2019. Contrary to the narrative of an ever more political Commission, we find that the lingu…
Women Leading the Opposition: Gender and Rhetoric in the European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is an intriguing arena to study the nexus between gender, speech-making, and leadership performance, as it simultaneously challenges and confirms gender-based hierarchies in legislative contexts. While the EP has a higher level of women’s representation than national parliaments, women’s access to top-level positions nonetheless remains limited. Yet the EP is a special case of a legislature. Lacking a right of initiat…
Do (strong) gender quotas make a difference? Multiple candidacies as a party gatekeeping strategy in Italy
Gender quotas are generally regarded as the foremost measure for the promotion of gender equality in politics. While quotas and their impact vary across countries, a strong quota system is defined as including blocked electoral lists, large district magnitude, strong non-compliance sanctions, and rank-order rules like gender alternation in the candidate lists. Yet, also in the presence of strong quota rules, parties might attempt strategies aimed…
What makes political parties to elect more women? a cross-country comparison
While women are gaining ground in national parliaments worldwide, the number of female representatives varies greatly between political parties. Since parties themselves can reflect gender biases, they play a key role in shaping women’s representation. Building on the existing literature, this research note examines the interplay between electoral systems, national institutions, and party characteristics to understand these disparities. By analys…
The study of Italian regional politics and the composition of the regional political class. The Itregparl dataset
One of the most persistent challenges in the study of regional politics in Italy is the lack of systematized data and information about the composition of regional legislatures and governments and the profiles of elected officials. In this paper, we describe the ITREGPARL dataset, a new comprehensive dataset of Italian regional politics comprising 6077 regional politicians from 1993 to 2020. It includes information about regional councillors, reg…
Revisiting the political opposition of the European Parliament: A rhetorical analysis of parliamentary speeches
This article critically revisits Peter Mair’s famous 2007 analysis of the European Parliament’s (EP) weak political opposition, examining the extent to which the Parliament serves as an arena for inter- and intra-institutional opposition in EU politics, with a specific focus on the symbolic signaling of opposition. Distinguishing between three different types of political opposition (collective, ‘majority-minority,’ ‘pro-/anti-European’), the pap…
The feminisation of Italian governments. Towards a more gender-equal distribution of political power
This article investigates whether a more equal gender distribution of power has emerged in Italian governments. Applying the newly developed ‘Political Power of Roles’ model, which measures the power of cabinet positions, we analyse the share of government power held by women senior and junior ministers from 1992 to 2024. The three most recent governments (Conte II, Draghi, and Meloni) are those exhibiting greater feminisation in terms of an over…
Do women promote women? Prime ministers’ gender, ideology, and ministerial selection
Politics (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Political science (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Economics (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (9 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works)