The evolution of Italian representation in the European Parliament: electoral laws, systemic effects and MPs’ characteristics

This chapter focuses on the Italian electoral legislation for the European Parliament elections and on its political consequences. As highlighted by a very rich literature, electoral laws are fundamental institutional variables that provide a set of incentives and constraints that influence voters’ behaviour and the competitive strategies of political actors. This process leads, in turn, to important consequences occurring both at the systemic level (the features of the party system) and at the individual level (the characteristics of the members of Parliament). Since the first EP election in 1979, the Italian electoral law has experienced relatively limited modifications, which have not changed its basic structure. However, this chapter will show how, in interaction with the changing structure of the party system, even minor modifications have produced significant effects. The chapter consists of three parts. The first part provides a historical overview of the Italian electoral legislation for the EP. It explores the evolution of the electoral rules since the introduction of a proportional formula at the time of the European Parliament’s first direct election in 1979 up to the most recent changes taking place in the last years (national electoral threshold, gender preferences, abolition of the ‘double mandate’ and so on). The second part puts Italy in a comparative perspective, offering a synthetic cross-section analysis of the 28 Member States’ electoral systems for the EP. Finally, the third part focuses on the effects of the Italian electoral law on political representation, considered in terms of systemic properties (number and size of parties, effective thresholds, territorial representation) and of Members of European Parliament’s individual characteristics (mainly in terms of gender).