Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Party Positions Or Party Direction?, Riccardo Pelizzo

riccardo pelizzo

The use .f the party manifesto data (PMD) to identqy parties’ position in the political space provida a rather distorted picture of the Italian party syJlern. Three possible explanations fbr this are explored, namely that the Italian party system is exceptional, that there are jlaws in [he data and there might be flaws in the methodology. The article argues that none of these explanations is jully satisJuctory and advances the hypothesis that the PMD left-right scores do not indicate parties’ posilions but instead indicate parties’ direction, that is how (and how much) parlies move to adjusl to changing political conditions …