Opposite Universes. A Focus on the Ideological Polarization of the Italian Electorate

Abstract

The morphological character of ideologies is closely related to the context in which they manifest themselves (Freeden, 2008). Furthermore, political polarisation is the tendency for the concentration of political supply mainly around two opposing poles (McCarty, Poole, Rosenthal, 2006). These poles are characterised by high levels of ideological distance and high homogeneity within them, resulting in a lower propensity of voters to move from one side to the other (Fiorina, Abrams, 2008; Druckman, Peterson, Slothuus, 2013). This paper analyses the ideological polarisation in Italy, focusing on the results of the 2022 general elections. The research moves from a combined and comparative analysis of the structural contexts of the territories and the forms of electoral behaviour in the different territorial investigated contexts. The results show how the economic, demographic, and social structure influences voting choices, and it can be considered a valuable tool for identifying the forms of ideological polarisation in the current Italian political scene. The 2022 general election returns a picture of an Italy divided into two blocs characterised by different forms of electoral competition: the Centro-Nord, wherein the political clash is between the heirs of the traditional ideologies of right (Lega, FdI) and left (Democratic Party); the Mezzogiorno is the arena of the electoral competition between the so-called hybrid-tactical forces (5-Star Movement and FI), that stand outside the system of traditional political forces. These empirical findings allow us to reflect on the nature of the opposite universes of Italian ideological polarisation.