National and local effects in the Italian regional elections (2018-2020). Beyond second-order election expectations?

This article investigates Italian regional elections held between 2018 and 2020 in order to assess whether, and if so, to what extent, regional elections present nationalized or localized features. We argue that the Italian regional elections do not perfectly reflect the expectations deriving from the Second Order Elections (SOE) theory. However, they are not completely ‘localized’, and they often mirror the national climate, as captured by Reif and Schmitt’s classical empirical expectations. Our contribution consists of two parts. First, we descriptively measure and discuss the extent to which high rates of volatility are due to local (localness) or national factors (nationalness). We do so by separately inspecting volatility produced by variations in electoral supply and by variations in vote shares. Secondly, after reflecting on the expected scope of the SOE theory in these terms, the latter component of volatility is explored to test Reif and Schmitt’s classic expectations. We show that, despite profound party-system change, recent Italian regional elections are still second-order – featuring, compared to legislative elections, lower turnouts and reversals for large, governing parties. Moreover, we show that, on top of the impact of national politics, regional and local peculiarities are nonetheless clearly visible; and, regardless of the recent extreme turbulence, they (mostly) follow classic historical trends and features.