Party mergers and vote shifts in Italy
Using data from exit polls and two different methods of ecological inference, I demonstrate how Italian voters shifted between 2006 and 2008. Newly merged parties (PdL, PD) were successful in retaining their former voters; parties which looked as if they would be penalized by the electoral system (Sinistra Arcobaleno, UDC) were deserted by voters. The relative success of the Lega Nord and Italia dei Valori results from strong performance in retaining their own voters and marginal transfers of votes from their coalition partners. PDF of working paper
Explaining the de facto independence of public broadcasters
Arms’ length institutions such as central banks, constitutional courts, and public broadcasters enjoy guarantees of de jure independence. However, de jure independence is no guarantee of de facto independence. Public broadcasting is a difficult case for de jure independence, since many competing explanatory variables are non-institutional and assumed to be heavily determinative. In this article, I operationalize the de jure and de facto independence of thirty-six public service broadcasters world-wide. I find that de jure independence explains a high degree of de facto independence when the size of the market for news is accounted for. Other variables present in previous literature – bureaucratic partisanship and the polarization of the party system - are not significant. Article in MS Word format
“Five ways to govern a public service broadcaster” - published in translation in Carstensen, Martin B., Flemming Svith, and Per Mouritsen (eds.), “DR og TV2 - i folkets tjeneste?” (Aarhus, Ajour, 2007)
In this chapter, I provide a typology of five types of PSB governance. The five types I identify - the Northern, Parliamentary, Corporatist, French, and Residual types - are distinguished by two characteristics: their board structure (in particular, whether dual or single-board), and their appointments process. Each type is associated with two further characteristics: their predominant method of funding, and their way of regulating controversial political content. The clustering of these characteristics into the five types suggests links between each of the characteristics, links which may constrain the design or the implementation of PSB reform. In the second part of the chapter, I look at two trends in the governance of PSBs: the increasing amount of soft regulation; and a gradual move away from licence fee funding, and discuss how broadcasters can best improve their performance within each category. [Draft article in PDF]
“The Gospel Truths of Italian Media Bias”, Comunicazione Politica Vol. VIII, no. 1, pp. 31-48
“The Italian debate on the political impartiality of the media has given us a series of hypotheses, which may be put to the test, on (1) the direction of the partiality of each network, and (2) political interference in Rai. Data collected by Agcom show that received wisdom on the direction of the partiality of each network - understood as the ap between the quantity of screen time given over to the two coalitions - is correct. Government interference, however, - manifested through appointments to Rai’s administrative council - has not altered the pre-existing models of partiality on the public channels. Polemics over nominations to Rai may therefore be a sign that the political class is more interested in the distributive consequences of such nominations than on their impact on the impartiality or correctness of journalism”.
“Il dibattito italiano sulla parzialità politica nei media ci ha fornito una serie di ipotesi, che sono ampiamente condivise e possono essere messe alla prova, su (1) la direzione della parzialità di ciascuna rete, e (2) l’ingerenza politica nella Rai. I dati raccolti dall’Agcom mostrano che le opinioni correnti sulla direzione della parzialità di ciascuna rete, intesa come il divario tra la quantità di screen time affidata ad entrambe le coalizioni, risultano confermate. L’ingerenza governativa, però – che si manifesta attraverso le nomine del consiglio di amministrazione della Rai –, non ha alterato i modelli di parzialità già esistenti nelle reti pubbliche. Le polemiche sulle nomine Rai dunque possono essere un segno che il ceto politico sia più interessato alle conseguenze distributive di tali nomine che al loro impatto sull’imparzialità e la correttezza del giornalismo”. [Article in draft]
M.Phil thesis, “Yes Minister? Political Interference in the BBC and Rai, 1996-2006″
“This thesis is about politicians and public service broadcasters. It is about how politicians try to interfere in the work of public service broadcasters, and how broadcasters try to achieve politicalindependence; how politicians’ best weapon may not be the power of appointment, but the power to coax and shame the broadcaster; and how the broadcaster’s best response might not be to lash out angrily, but rather to shield itself in a strong internal culture and adhere to agreed procedures for dealing with such accusations. Most of all, it is about how two broadcasters, the BBC and RAI, have dealt with such interference, and how they have succeeded - or failed…” [PDF]
