Was Mattarella worth the trouble? Explaining the failure of the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum

Bibliographic Data

ID6277348
AuthorsFedra Negri (0000-0003-4906-2707, University of Milan), Elisa Rebessi (0000-0001-6262-8731, University of Milan)
Year2018
Volume48
Issue2
Pages177-196
Publication date2018-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueItalian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-8402 • E-ISSN: 2057-4908
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/ipo.2017.29
OpenAlexW2792188771
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited33

The election of President Mattarella is a turning point in Matteo Renzi’s attempt to reform the constitution. This choice determined the loss of Forza Italia’s support to the constitutional reform, thus leaving the Renzi cabinet and the Democratic Party alone on the Yes-side. Our goal is to assess the degree of Renzi’s misjudgment by comparing two theoretical perspectives on voting behavior in direct-democratic settings through a nested design. Our results highlight that vote choices can be explained by both the systematic and the heuristic modes of information processing. Respondents’ agreement with the content of the reform (systematic mode) and a positive evaluation of the Renzi cabinet (heuristic mode) are key predictors of Yes vote. Instead, the negative assessment of the economic situation is a crucial driver of No vote. Lastly, we build a bridge between these two perspectives by showing that partisan attachments conditioned the effect of respondents’ content evaluation on voting behavior

Cabinet (room · Democracy · Economics · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Referendum · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Engineering · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Public Administration

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