They have some nicely formatted XML files for the resoconti (minutes) of each parliamentary sitting.

But their voting information is stuck in crappy PDFs.

Grrr.

So, I have to

• download all the PDF files using a horrible bash script;
• convert them to XML (for file in *.pdf; do pdftohtml -xml "$file"; done)
• examine the XML file to find out where the column breaks are
• write a perl script to parse the files using this information

…and then merge them.

I’m tremendously pleased that sites like this are starting to happen in Italy. The Camera actually has quite well-formated XML files for each of the plenary sessions, and all it needed was for someone to put that to good use.

So wonderful is the site that I feel churlish to pick on them. But just note that their graph of parliamentarians’ positions is based on multidimensional scaling, and as such is going to fall prey to the same problems as optimal classification analysis — extreme deputies in the governing coalition who rebel are going to be depicted as centrists, when they’re not.

Still, nice visualization.

Given this, it seems natural to look for alternate ways of estimating ideal points. One such way is to look at cosponsorship. The idea is this: although voting for or against a bill has consequences (and therefore strategic manipulation of the vote is worthwhile), that’s not the same for cosponsorship. It’s a low-cost signalling mechanism, which is not really subject to strategic manipulation.

This is doubly true for cosponsorship of motions.

So, using the same methodology as Aleman, Calvo, Jones and Kaplan [described here], I used cosponsorship of motions in the 15th legislature of the Italian Chamber of Deputies to work out legislators’ ideal points.

The graphic below shows the ideal points for the seven main parliamentary groups — Rifondazione Comunista, the PD, Italia dei Valori, the UDC, the Lega Nord, Forza Italia, and Alleanza Nazionale.

Two dimensions are plotted — the first dimension seems to be the standard left-right dimension. I’m less sure about the second dimension. In some legislatures it comes up as a north-south dimension, but that’s not the case here. Party labels are put at the centroid of each group (which, just to make things confusing, is not the same as the dimension by dimension median, which is more commonly used in political science).

What can we tell from this?

• The parties run, left-right: RC > PD > IdV > UDC > LN > FI > AN
• In terms of parliamentary behaviour, the LN deputies are contained within the union of UDC ^ AN
• There are a number of Forzista deputies who are within the convex hull of the PD and IdV — Berlusconi, for example (though Berlusconi signed few motions, so take the position with a grain of salt), and Fabrizio Cicchitto (which makes sense for someone who came from the PSI).
• Gianfranco Fini lies to the left of the AN convex hull, and is within the LN and UDC convex hulls…
• Emilia de Biasi (PD) and everybody’s favourite transsexual parliamentarian Vladimir Luxuria are the two most left-wing deputies.
• Marco Zacchera and Roberto Pedrizzi are the two most right-wing deputies. I know nothing about these two.

Any comments about the positioning of these deputies is more than welcome. Additionally, anyone who wants to see the R code, raw data, or raw coordinates used to plot these points, is welcome to contact me. Finally, any hints about how to display this information better would also be appreciated.

I wondered where this information was coming from, so I checked on the Senate web site.

Apparently, disclosure like this has been required since 1982 — legge del 5 luglio 1982, n. 441, if you’re interested. All very good.

Is it consultable online? Is it hell. You have to go to the Senate offices between 10am and 7pm and show that you’re registered to vote.

Update: Oh, and you can’t take photocopies, or digital photography. No news yet on whether biros for taking notes will be allowed, or whether there’s a pencils-only policy

• 23.5% were votes in favour
• 51.6% were votes against
• 1.8% were registered abstentions
• 23.1% were absent — that is, that particular legislator was not included in the roll-call

which, according to this paper by Rosas and Shomer, is high compared to the US Congress and French Assemblee Nationale (4th Republic), but low compared to Brazil or Argentina.

One of the things I learned from parsing the data was that only about five hundred of the six hundred thirty deputies in the Camera have actually spoken in a plenary session so far. For some deputies, that’s unsurprising, as they hold posts in the government and thus are too busy to make speeches in the plenary. Analogous reasoning holds for some of the Presidents of the various parliamentary committees.

But then there are around eighty individuals not in government who still haven’t spoken, almost a year into the legislature. Here they are, the Lazy Eighty:

• UDC (6): DE POLI Antonio, DELFINO Teresio, NARO Giuseppe, OPPI Giorgio, PISACANE Michele, RUGGERI Salvatore
• PdL (60): ABELLI Gian Carlo, ANGELI Giuseppe, ANGELUCCI Antonio, ARACRI Francesco, ARACU Sabatino, ARMOSINO Maria Teresa, BARBA Vincenzo, BERARDI Amato, BIAVA Francesco, BONCIANI Alessio, CALABRIA Annagrazia, CATONE Giampiero, CESARO Luigi, COSENZA Giulia, DEL TENNO Maurizio, DELL’ELCE Giovanni, DISTASO Antonio, DIVELLA Francesco, GALATI Giuseppe, GHEDINI Niccolo’, GIACOMONI Sestino, GIRO Francesco Maria, GRIMALDI Ugo Maria Gianfranco, HOLZMANN Giorgio, IAPICCA Maurizio, MANNUCCI Barbara, MARINI Giulio, MARTINELLI Marco, MILANESE Marco Mario, MINARDO Antonino, MINASSO Eugenio, MISTRELLO DESTRO Giustina, MISURACA Dore, MOTTOLA Giovanni Carlo Francesco, MURGIA Bruno, NICOLUCCI Massimo, PARISI Massimo, PERINA Flavia, PETRENGA Giovanna, PISO Vincenzo, PITTELLI Giancarlo, PROIETTI COSIMI Francesco, ROSSI Mariarosaria, RUBEN Alessandro, SAMMARCO Gianfranco, SCALERA Giuseppe, SCALIA Giuseppe, SCAPAGNINI Umberto, SCELLI Maurizio, SILIQUINI Maria Grazia, SIMEONI Giorgio, STAGNO D’ALCONTRES Francesco, STANCA Lucio, STASI Maria Elena, TOTO Daniele, TRAVERSA Michele, TREMAGLIA Mirko, VALENTINI Valentino, VELLA Paolo, VESSA Pasquale
• PD (7): BONAVITACOLA Fulvio, CALEARO CIMAN Massimo, DAL MORO Gian Pietro, GAGLIONE Antonio, GINOBLE Tommaso, LUONGO Antonio, SPOSETTI Ugo
• Lega Nord (3): FORCOLIN Gianluca, MUNERATO Emanuela, SALVINI Matteo

I don’t want to say that the more you speak in the plenary, the better parliamentarian you are. Perhaps speaking less means doing more — l’Italia del fare, invece dell’Italia che chiacchiera. That’s probably the defence that Massimo Calearo would use. But some of these politicians are doing themselves no favours, leaving themselves open to accusations that they are either pretty faces (Annagrazia Calabria, Barbara Mannucci) or greybeards  (Mirko Tremaglia, anybody?)