On the Dynamics of Leader Effects in Parliamentary Elections: Panel Evidence from the Second Italian Republic

This paper elaborates on the notion of “leader effects” moving from the seminal distinction between direct and indirect effects as brought forward by King (2002). The analysis assesses the empirical validity of such dichotomy making use of a unique panel dataset collected by the Italian National Election Study in November/December 2013. Two theoretically-driven hypotheses are presented: (1) in the short-term, the electoral effect of an extremely popular new leader (i.e., Matteo Renzi) can only be due to his personality profile (direct effect); (2) the electoral effect of an unpopular old leader (i.e., SIlvio Berlusconi) is to be located in its ability to reshape his party’s profile (indirect effect). The empirical analysis rejects both hypotheses and hints at the crucial need for future research to take both sources of effect into account. A more compelling composite model is thus presented in the last section of the paper.